Poker Face: Part One
by Silver2018
Summary: The A-Team is going crazy hiding from the military until Face discovers a solution that may help them deal with their new lives.  Also, the FBI has learned of their whereabouts, and requests their help in taking down a trafficking ring.
1. Prologue: Haunted

**Poker Face**

**Prologue**

_Six months ago_

Kevin Trier lay awake that night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about ghosts.

Of course like any other logical, money-oriented banker, he believed they didn't exist, except as figments of anyone's imagination or the stuff of B-rated movies, (unless you counted _Paranormal Activity_, people had seemed to _like_ that one). But just thinking they didn't exist wasn't enough to shake the creepy crawly sensation that came over him as he remembered Mr. Benedict's last words. "Well, it's a lovely property, sure. I'm certain the little accident won't haunt it." There had been something in the man's friendly blue eyes that just set him on edge. And of course he hadn't told Molly about it, or any of their kids. The utopian Malibu mansion was seconds from the beach, sprawling in its wide-open living area, tasteful in the kitchen that Molly proclaimed "a dream come true", bright in each of its four bedrooms, and colorful in its landscaped front yard. There was absolutely nothing to suggest the brutal murder-suicide that had occurred here only a year ago. In fact, it had never been mentioned to him until Mr. Benedict had wandered into the coffee shop that morning to close the sale - which Kevin had done with only the slightest hiccup of hesitation. After all, he hadn't been working with Mr. Benedict. But the man had shown credentials, and even a phone call to the real estate company had proved his legitimacy. The agent Kevin had been working with had been called away - family emergency. And so, he'd signed the papers and agreed to start moving in the next week.

Then, of course, things had only gotten weirder. Upon leaving the coffee shop Kevin had bumped into a man on the busy street, knocking off his red baseball cap. Oddly enough, the man had not seemed at all perturbed about the cap: he instead began shrieking that Kevin had kicked his dog. Except there was no dog. Kevin had sharp eyes and a sharper nose when it came to mutts, and there was no hint of a four-legged canine anywhere near the man. But the man had been adamant, pointing a finger and screaming: "I'll get you! I'll get you for your animal cruelty!" He'd created a nice scene before bolting off in the supposed direction of his dog. Kevin had bolted in the opposite direction, ready to have a nice, normal Friday. He'd had his fill of weirdness.

Well, he'd had a nice, normal Friday - and a nice, normal week. The family had moved peacefully from one house to the other, though they were still far from being fully unpacked, and Kevin hadn't heard a peep or a poltergeist.

Until now. See now, it was just past midnight, and he was laying in bed next to Molly, and the light streaming in through the window was turning the dark room a shade of silver and casting the shadows of the still-packed boxes into sharp relief. And someone opened the door to his house.

Kevin sat bolt upright with a gasp. Next to him, Molly groaned and turned over, then began snoring quietly.

The door clicked shut, and slow, thudding footsteps echoed through the house. Kevin slowly eased out of bed and reached for the first heavy object that he could find - a clock radio. He threw on a robe, crept to the door of the master bedroom, and down the hall into the main living room.

Nothing happened. The door didn't move, the steps had stopped, and only the sound of his heightened breathing filled the room. _Get a hold of yourself._

Then, he heard it. A low growl, Chihuahua in nature. That in and of itself raised the hair on his arms, but after a few seconds another growl joined it. Then another, and another, until it sounded like there was a whole army of them just in the other room, just past the boxes, perhaps hiding in the kitchen cabinets. Dropping the clock, Kevin grabbed one of the lamps from a side table. He unplugged it from the wall and moved into the kitchen.

The growls stopped. The crackle of tree branches tapped the window, the branches themselves creating moving shadows over the floor, tricking the unobservant eye into believing the floor itself may have been coming alive. Kevin was distracted, for only a moment, trying to trick himself back out of it, disoriented by the movement, and then a deep gasp filled the room. Kevin jumped backwards with a choked-off cry - and then the figure of Mr. Benedict fell into the kitchen.

"You? What are you doing in my house?" Kevin snapped, trying to keep his voice low. He didn't want to wake and scare his family.

Mr. Benedict moaned and grabbed at the wall. He left a bloody handprint on the white Sheetrock. Kevin's attitude changed in a moment and he leaped towards the figure. "Hey! Hey, are you all right?"

"She...came...for me..." Mr. Benedict groaned, flailing out. His bloody hand landed on Kevin's shoulder, leaving a telltale sign.

"Who did?"

"Anissa...I thought...it was a joke..."

"What?" What was a joke?" Kevin began to feel a hole open up into his stomach.

Mr. Benedict lifted his face and Kevin pushed him away with a sharp cry. Blood trickled from the man's mouth and one of his eyes had gone red with it. To make matters worse, there was a hole in his chest, just above his heart. He leaned limply against the wall. "I came...to warn you...Anissa...was the murdered woman...and she found out...I sold the house to you."

Kevin's heart pounded. There had to be a logical explanation for this. Something real, nothing supernatural. But the growls started again and Mr. Benedict let out a weak cry. "That's her...her and her pack of dogs...she knows I sold you the house...and you kicked that man's dog..."

"_There was no dog there!_" Kevin shouted. In response, one of the growls grew into a loud barking. "He was a lunatic!"

"She's going to kill you just like she killed me," Mr. Benedict moaned. "You have to run."

From upstairs, there came a loud scream, and Kevin gasped. "Lauren!" His youngest daughter had an unmistakable voice, and it echoed through the house like a clap of doom. Forgetting all about Mr. Benedict, he ran for the stairs, terror pumping through his veins. The growls seemed to fill the house now, and he could hear other voices shouting: Molly's, Anthony's, and some sort of otherworldly falsetto.

"If you want to live," the falsetto hummed, "run."

"_Lauren!_"

"Daddy!" His little angel came pelting out of her room. "There's a woman in my room with a knife!"

"Kevin, what's happening!" Molly joined, her face pale. Kevin wrapped his arm around his wife and let Anthony take Lauren in hand. He realized he'd left both the paperweight and the lamp downstairs and instead took a step towards the room.

The door slammed shut, then blew open with an abundance of yellow and white light. A figure clutching a bloody knife, dressed all in white with a veil over her head, staggered out. "Where..." it purred, "...is that agent? I have...to finish him."

"Oh my God," Molly moaned. "Kids, come on..."

Her voice alerted the figure, who looked up. Icy eyes the color of old pea soup landed on Kevin's, and he could have sworn he saw a sick smile emerge in them. "The ASPCA won't do for you," it rasped at him. "I've got something better in mind."

Kevin had had enough. "_Run_, Molly!"

In about ten seconds, the Trier family had cleared the house. One minute later, they were speeding away, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust in their wake. The house sat, alone and still, for a few minutes - and then a kitchen light clicked on.

"Leave that on, I need to get a picture," Templeton Peck said, pointing at the veiled figure as it walked into the kitchen. "We can sell it on eBay."

"That's not one of your better ideas, Face," the figure said in its delicate falsetto, pulling the veil off of its head before any camera shutter clicked. "This one though...this one was rather fun." H.M. Murdock let a wild grin cross his face before he began cutting various swoops through the air, wielding the butcher knife like a rapier.

"Go back to growling, Murdock. You sound like someone kicked you in the groin." Face pulled off the bloody shirt and began using it to scrub the fake blood from his face and chest. He leaned over carefully and popped out the eye contact, returning both his eyes to their normal blue.

Murdock kept grinning but obliged, letting out a very realistic Chihuahua-like growl. He turned it into a word, clearing his throat, but returning to his usual Southern tenor. "R-r-r-r-r-right then, let's tell Bosco and the Bossman that we've landed ourselves a house." He reached into the kitchen cabinets and pulled out the boom box that was still playing the tape of growls. Hitting the stop button, he pulled out the tape and gazed at it fondly before looking back to Face. "Pretending to have a dog last week was fun, Face. I think I'd like to actually get one. Do you think we can get one now that we have a house?"

Face shrugged, splashing himself with water. "Maybe. If we can stay at this house long enough. You'll have to ask Hannibal and B.A."

Murdock sighed. "I don't want to ask B.A. I don't think he's dog-friendly."

Face gave Murdock a look, suppressing the hysterical urge to laugh at the sight of the slight pilot outfitted in an old wedding dress, his hair sticking up in all directions from the veil. _Nothing's ever boring with you, my friend._ "I'm sure Hannibal can talk him into it. Now seriously, get out of that thing before I hit this button." He pulled out a phone and held it up, pretending to be ready to take a picture.

Murdock yelped. "The groom can't see the bride before the wedding!" he shouted, backing quickly away into the darkness on the other side of the dining room.

Face grinned and dialed a quick number. After a moment, he spoke again. "Boss? We got a place."


	2. Chapter One: Stagnation

**Chapter One: Stagnation**

_Two Days Ago_

Special Agent Jessica Teegan gazed down at the pictures, hardly moving, barely blinking, and only half-aware of the shift-change going on all around her. Jess's slim hands wrapped around each other almost as if in prayer - but in truth, the white knuckles betrayed the trembling emotion beginning to roar within her. A strand of her blonde hair fell forward over one eye. She didn't move it. She didn't dare, because she was certain if she moved even an eyelash right now she would start throwing up.

The pictures spread over her desk revealed six different girls. Some were plump, some were thin, some were athletic, and at least one had to be a bookworm. They were of different ethnicities. And they all shared three things in common:

They were all females between the ages of 21 and 29 who had vanished within a period of six weeks.

Jessica continued to breathe as slowly as possible. The late sunlight faded out slowly as the sun set below the horizon, and the chatter of agents in and out began to die away. Eventually Jessica's hand automatically moved to her desk lamp, switching on the harsh white light to facilitate further reading. The light revealed a cluttered desk, files and papers strewn everywhere, a business pencil holder, and a paperweight in the shape of the Empire State Building. It also revealed a leg.

Jessica looked up, startled from her reading, to the serious dark-haired man half-sitting on her desk. "Haskell," she murmured in greeting before looking down.

"Jess..." Jacob Haskell shifted off of the desk and settled neatly into the chair across from her. "You haven't moved in almost two hours."

"I don't understand," Jessica said. "I just don't get it, Jake. Six girls have gone missing in the past six weeks. We've questioned the security at the airport, the driver of the tourist bus, and at least a dozen people from the Santa Monica Pier. And all we have in the way of leads are a modeling agency, a possible seventh target, and four lunatics who flew a tank."

"The A-Team has been dismissed, Jess. Like I told you from the beginning, it's just a story the guys were running with. There's no credibility to it at all. The modeling agency is our best shot. I told you, I heard them recruit the girl yesterday. This is what we know."

"I know..." Jess's eyes drifted to the files on the corner of her desk, the same kernel of an idea that had been cooking all day trying its hardest to pop. "I don't think they're involved. But..."

Jacob leaned in, aware of the change in his partner's voice. "What?"

Jess looked up at him. "Eighty missions in eight years. These men have almost never been touched. Their records are almost perfect. If you hadn't mentioned them to me, I would have never seen their files unless the military decided to ask for our help."

Jacob's eyes were guarded. "What are you getting at?"

"We need help."

Jacob shook his head hard. "No. Absolutely not. These men are a story - they're probably behind bars now. And you can't afford to waste the time trying to find them." He jabbed his finger at the desk. "Six girls are missing."

Jess tilted her head, her gaze steady. "I'm not wasting time, Jake. All we have to do is ask them if they're willing to help us."

"We have to find them first."

"I know where they are."

Jacob stopped cold, his mouth half open. "Wh-what did you say?"

Jess allowed a smug smile to cross her face. "I said I found them."

o0o

_Present Day_

Hannibal Smith let out a deep sigh as he lit his - sixth? - cigar in about as many hours. In front of him, the Pacific Ocean churned and hissed onto the sunset-reddened sand, and the sky above shimmered as clear and untouched as any California evening. The sun sank towards the water with all the resistance of butter to a knife, and seagulls floating nearby added their maniacal flapping to the brisk sea breeze that blew the ashes back in his face and ruffled his white hair. He puffed for a few moments, enjoying the sharp-sweet taste of tobacco. He sat on the sand, arms relaxed over bent knees, head ramrod straight, and icy blue eyes staring mercilessly out of a deeply lined face. Despite the heat, he wore faded blue jeans and an Army-green t-shirt that clung to his muscular body but didn't show off any more than it was meant to.

To the outsider, Hannibal would have appeared content, a middle-aged ex-military enjoying a smoke on the colorful Malibu beach. But after approaching him, it became obvious that his muscles were taut, his eyes troubled, and his body radiating tension to a lung-crushing degree. Closer still and the faint scent of anxiety - a thick, sweet-salty musk - combined with a hint of burned toast would flutter into the nostrils. Anxiety was not a scent Hannibal wore often - after nine years and eighty-one missions with the same set of brothers, he'd become almost blindingly confident in his abilities to do the impossible at any time. But tonight, he was anxious. And part of it had to do with the other scent on him: burnt toast.

Just after sundown on a normal January, Hannibal would be eating supper. Tonight, however, there was no supper. No edible supper at least. B.A. had stomped out almost an hour ago, muttering that he would 'save Murdock the embarrassment.' Face had seated himself at the kitchen table and promptly devoured the burned toast points and drastically overspiced coconut curry tapenade that Murdock had thudded down in front of him. Hannibal had had the misfortune of standing too close to Murdock when the pilot had finally lost it, throwing the remaining pan of coconut curry tapenade at the sink. Face had tried to get the screaming pilot to calm down, but Murdock had rejected all forms of help and bolted out the front door. His last words had been: "We're _all_ insane now!"

Face had wanted to go out after him, but Hannibal had stopped his XO. He hadn't wanted to admit it, but he'd been waiting for Murdock to break all week. It started with his becoming quieter, spending more time talking to his dog than anyone else, and playing endless rounds of Super Smash Brothers on the used Gamecube he'd bought. Slowly it had progressed to increasingly bad cooking, and finally culminated in tonight's breakdown. Murdock was the first. Hannibal wondered who would be next.

The A-Team was suffering. Worse than that, they were stagnating. Six months ago, they had almost achieved their goal. They had retrieved the engraving plates from Pike, exposed Agent Lynch as an enemy of the United States, and effectively proven that they had been wrongfully imprisoned. And then, they had been arrested on a technicality. So they'd gone on the run, searching for a place to hide and hole up. Hannibal had put Face in charge of locating a suitable home, and when Face took Murdock along on a 'house-hunting trip', Hannibal knew the two were up to no good. Later on, he learned that a banker had reneged on his contract to buy a house, stating it was 'haunted', and he had other places to go. Hannibal hadn't been pleased to hear that Face had ousted a perfectly innocent man out of a house, but it, unfortunately, did exactly what they needed it to do: hid the Team in plain sight. And he hadn't wanted to run anymore. He'd made a mental note of the man's name, hoping to pay him back in some way later on in life. Assuming he ever got the chance.

It didn't look like he was going to. They'd acquired the house six months ago. And nothing had happened since. Nothing. Not a peep from Sosa, not a hint from the military, not a wire from the CIA. Needing income to keep up the mansion, Hannibal and the others had gotten themselves hired at various locations in nondescript jobs, saving every penny, regulating and rationing food and energy. At first it had been fun, almost like living normal lives. But eventually the novelty wore off. The ability to go out as a group died because they were too conspicuous. And now, six months later, Murdock was convinced they were all slowly going mad, B.A. had taken to spending almost all of his time out, Face watched mindless TV, and Hannibal stared at the ocean.

_We need a job._

Face's words had been mumbled as Hannibal walked out of the house, trying to breathe after being spattered by Murdock's curry, but he'd heard them nonetheless. He'd nodded, though Face had been past noticing, and now as he sat on the beach and stared at the nothing before him, he wondered just how possible it would be to do something that would remind him and his team that they were alive.

_Anything. Stop a robbery. Take out a gang. We're near Los Angeles, for Christ's sake. There's got to be something we can do._

"There's got to be something we can do."

Hannibal squinted up to see Face standing in front of him. The younger man settled himself in the dusky sand, tanned legs poking out of his khaki cargo shorts and blue t-shirt casing his torso. His bright blue eyes belied a deep concern that his stubbled face didn't really show. He looked blank, in fact. The wind plucked at strands of his dark brown hair, turning the blonde streaks in it a bright red. The waves hissed at his toes and the seagulls flapped madly above their heads, curious about the cigar in Hannibal's hand.

"I know, kid," Hannibal sighed. "We're playing the worst game now. We're waiting."

"Waiting isn't enough," Face stated. "We have to do something. We've been out of jail six months and it doesn't feel like it at all. I mean, were you just _in_ there? When has Murdock ever thrown a tantrum like that? Hell, he's the untouchable one and if _he's_ lost it...what does that say about us?"

"It says that we're the ones who have to bring him back," Hannibal shot a glare at his XO. "Murdock's strong, but he's the most susceptible to what's going on."

"And what is going on?"

"I told you, we're waiting."

"_For what_?" Now Face's eyes flashed, and Hannibal realized his friend was just as lost as he was. "What do you know, Hannibal, 'cause I really think we need to be clued in on it!"

"I don't _know_ anything!" Hannibal fired back. "I'm not sure how to get us out of this mess we're in. You did a great job at the docks, kid. A_ great_ job. But we're going to need something of a miracle to clear ourselves."

Face hesitated for a moment before speaking. "W...why not just turn ourselves in? I mean, we've cleared our names of the harshest charges. Escaping from jail can't be...that bad of a sentence. Can it?"

Hannibal's eyes bored into him. "You want to go back to jail, Face?"

Face swallowed. "No, but...if we just serve the term and get out, we don't have to hide anymore."

"It's a minimum of sixteen months for you, me, and B.A." Hannibal growled out the terms. "That's the California minimum. But with what we've done? The military will extend it. You know that."

"What about Murdock?"

"Three years."

Face blinked. "Maximum?"

"Minimum. He escaped from a mental health facility, not a jail." Hannibal chewed on his cigar. "And with his psychiatric tests, it's not likely he'd be allowed on the streets regardless. He's lucky he even got himself hired for a job."

Face shut up, his expression no longer blank but now just as troubled. It was clear that he'd been spitballing, but that didn't make Hannibal feel any better. To think that Face would even consider returning to jail was just another stake in the heart of the team.

"We need to do something together," Face said then.

Hannibal glanced at him and puffed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that the four of us need to do something together." Face challenged Hannibal with his eyes. "I know the four of us are conspicuous together, but we have to do something, and we have to do it together. It's cabin fever as much as anything else, boss. All day we're out on our own, by ourselves, and when we come home it's just the four of us in this house. We're dealing with plain old cabin fever on top of everything else. We need a break. We need to get out and do something together as friends as much as brothers in arms."

"We can't just walk into a travel agency and buy a cruise," Hannibal began, but Face shook his head.

"I was thinking a strip club."


	3. Chapter Two: Santa Monica

**Many thanks to all of my readers and especially to my reviewers! You keep this story going! Hopefully I keep you all entertained enough Things are coming together a lot quicker now that I'm past the opening hurdle.**

**Chapter Two: Santa Monica**

_BEEP BEEEEeeeee..._

Murdock started awake, jerking reflexively to his feet. One fist crossed in front of him, the other pulled back, ready to hurl forward at the nearest enemy. He rapidly blinked his eyes, trying to remove the crust from them and clear his vision before taking the first swing. And then he stopped short.

He perched at an awkward angle on the concrete, muscles straining a little to keep his thin, lithe body upright. His hair brushed the metal struts above him and his bright green eyes stared in surprise as, some twenty feet away, the road snaked and curved east and west, home to dozens of cars of all shapes, sizes, and license plates. The roar of their wheels against the pavement echoed all around him, and very gradually he became aware of the dust tickling his nose as well as the dirty scent of L.A. smog, exhaust, and sun-beaten tar.

_This is not my room._

A bit nonplussed, Murdock slowly lowered himself into a crouch. No doubt about it - he was under an overpass looking down at the I-10. He lifted a hand to push down on his hat - and realized the red-brimmed cover was not on his dusty head. With a yelp, he sprang to his feet again, spinning around in circles until he spotted it a few feet away - under Billy's head.

"Billy," he groaned. "I told you, that hat does not _fit_ you. You can't have it!" He walked over and attempted to free it, but Billy was rather adamant, chomping his teeth on it and whining piteously, staring at Murdock with his big blue eyes. Murdock sighed at his dog and stroked its black and white head. "Look, that's the I-10 there. Which means we're near the Pier. I'll get you a hat from Santa Monica and it'll smell like turkey legs because the turkey leg stand is nearby, so you'll love it, okay?"

Billy seemed to agree, relinquishing the hat at last. Murdock pulled it onto his head and sat down, trying to brush the grey dust from his jeans and only having it fly up and pollinate his nose until he leaned over and sneezed four times in a row. Billy snorted at his master's silliness and started digging in the dirt, clearly looking for his morning bathroom. Murdock moved away from his dog a little, giving him some privacy. He had enough to worry about without offending his only present best friend. Like for examples, _how_ had he wound up on the I-10, something like ten miles from his home with the A-Team? Had he really ran all the way? He had vague memories of pounding pavement, shouting nonsensical things with every other step, releasing all of his pent-up energy and frustration. And then at some point, everything had blurred and gone black – and he'd woken up when that semi-truck had decided to honk its horn twenty feet from him. One hell of an alarm clock.

After a few more moments of staring blankly (and silently waiting for his dog to finish his business), Murdock finally made the decision to stand up and start walking. If it had taken him all night to get here, it would take all day to get back (especially now that he had to stop by the Pier to buy his dog a hat). That was also assuming no one knew where he was, which he wasn't quite ready to believe. Even if Bossman couldn't find him, Face would. Face always seemed to know where he was. It was comforting.

"Billy? Come on. Let's get home."

The Santa Monica Pier fairly glimmered in the late morning light, already stuffed with tourists despite the cooler January weather. The majestic Ferris wheel turned slowly, giving lovers plenty of time to profess whilst looking down, and frustrated children to bounce on their seats shouting: "up, up, up!" whilst training their eyes on the sky. The sweet-salty-fat stench of turkey legs, funnel cakes, and spilled Cokes pushed on Murdock's nose all at once, almost tearing up his eyes. He stumbled a little left and right, keeping Billy next to him at all times, and avoiding visual or spoken contact with anyone other than an "excuse me." Most people he got close to melted away from him anyway, whether from the half-crazed gleam he'd put in his eye or the acrid stench of sweat and dirt caked on his body after spending a night courtesy of I-10 and Lincoln Blvd. Anyone who tried to engage him in conversation, however, got a small smile but a non-answer. It wasn't in his nature to be gruff and mean – that was B.A.'s rap. But he couldn't afford to get too friendly with the local public right now.

Once he got to the hat stand, however, he swung the bill of his hat backwards and offered a wider, scruffier smile to the sweating seller, who looked a little like B.A. minus about a hundred pounds. _Maybe it is B.A. and the sun made him lose weight._ Murdock cocked his head and leaned in: "B.A.?" he asked with a wicked smile.

The seller gave him a suspicious eye. "What you say?" he replied, and Murdock gulped.

"Thought you were someone else. I'll take this one." He snatched up a red hat and held it out to Billy. "You like it?"

Billy barked in response and Murdock turned, grinning, back to the seller. "You know, it's crazy. Dogs are colorblind. But my dog loves red. Won't wear a hat unless it's red. You see the problem." He pointed matter-of-factly to his own head. "Silly dog keeps stealing mine, so I have to get him one of his own."

"What dog?"

Murdock fixed him with an 'are you insane' glare and made a huge show of walking around Billy, making sure not to twist the leash and hurt his dog. "Billy. My dog."

The seller stared at him (and the empty space beside him) for a good few seconds before muttering: "Get out of here."

Murdock stared at him, visibly surprised, and then smiled widely. "Why thank you for the hat, mister! Billy sure appreciates it!" He gave a tug on the leash and blended into the crowd, heading for the edge of the Pier. If the man shouted at him to come back and pay for the hat, he would. But something else caught his ears then, and he tuned in like a fan to a football game.

_"You spin me right round baby, right round, like a record baby right round, round round."_

At first, Murdock wondered if he was singing aloud - granted he'd heard the song playing and now it was stuck in his head, but after a moment he realized that there was no way he was singing out loud because he just could not sing that high. He stopped and looked around, his green eyes confused.

_"Yeah I, I get to know your name..."_

Pulling on Billy's leash, Murdock set off in search of the source of the song. It was one of his favorites, after all, brought back memories of Mexico if nothing else. And from the sound of it, a woman was trying to karaoke it and doing an okay job. Voice needed some work, but it wasn't a hard song to sing after all. Maybe when she was done he could jump up there and show off what he knew.

_"All I know is that to me, you look like you're lotsa fun. Open up your lovin' arms, watch out here I come!"_

Sure enough, there was a small crowd gathered and a small line formed near the edge of the Pier. It looked like a birthday party, but at the same time some of the faces were registering confusion and even frustration, all aimed at the figure standing at the mike. Murdock tilted his head and inspected her as well. Nothing _looked_ wrong with her: she had long, curly light brown hair, and a body that suited the brightly colored tank top and white shorts she was wearing. From where he stood she had kind of a cute nose and wide, smiling lips. And she wasn't ripping up the song _too_ badly. So why did people look so mad?

He got his answer when she stopped singing, finishing with a wide flourish and a bright smile that lit up her entire face. "Thanks a lot!" she beamed at the crowd, eyes flicking appreciatively over them all. "I appreciate your letting me hop up here unannounced!"

"Sure thing, honey," a stiff older woman said. "Next time, try waiting in line for your turn though."

The girl turned around to see the line of grumpy would-be singers and a look of surprise slipped over her face. "Oh, I didn't realize...I'm sorry."

She sprang off of the stage and melted away into the crowd. Murdock craned his neck trying to spot her. He wanted to ask her why she had sung that song, and maybe sing it for her - show her the parts she had messed up on. But - she was nowhere to be found amongst the brilliantly colored stands and hot-dog-chomping kids.

A little disappointed, Murdock continued heading for home.

Face angled the yellow Corvette neatly around the winding turns of the Pacific Highway, the comforting high rocks at his side and the terrifying dropoffs one lane over. He kept the speed down for once, enjoying the feel of the wind in his hair and the salt in his nose, but also scanning the sides of the road with his sharp blue eyes. It would not do to completely miss a man in a red baseball cap and three layers of shirts because he was flying along at 80 miles an hour.

That didn't mean some part of him didn't enjoy the ride though.

Against his better judgement, he'd allowed Hannibal to talk him into staying at home the previous night - after winning the argument about the strip club, the least he could do was wait for morning to search for their missing pilot. But when the sun came up and the 'crazy fool' wasn't on the doorstep, Face had left without a word, heisting the Corvette from a busy Starbucks coffee shop and taking off in search of his best friend. He was pretty sure that he only had a few hours before the cops caught him, and by then he hoped to have ditched the car as cleanly as possible.

Face felt a tiny smile break out across his face as he thought about tomorrow night. Hannibal had laughed - actually _laughed_ - when Face mentioned going to the strip club. That sound alone had not dissuaded Face one bit: in fact it bolstered him. Hannibal could still laugh. He had used that, pressing on and repeating about how much they needed the time to be friends and do something completely crazy that they could actually get away with and still keep themselves under cover. He'd topped off the argument by pointing out that his birthday was that weekend, and he wanted to do _something_ to celebrate. Hannibal, still chuckling, had told him that if he could talk B.A. and Murdock into going, he'd support it. When B.A had come back last night, Face had point blank told him that they were going to a strip club in two days. B.A. had had the same reaction as Hannibal, laughing for a few seconds before asking Face if he'd gone as crazy as Murdock. Face had cheerfully shaken his head, and B.A. had finally agreed, saying that seeing Murdock in a strip club would be worth the whole night.

Face, at this immediate moment, was more thinking that seeing Murdock at all would be worth the next night. Trying to figure out which direction the pilot had originally gone in had been easy enough. In all the years Face had known him, Murdock had only run two places when he was upset - and the more common of the two was an airport. Traversing the Pacific Highway en route to LAX, therefore, was the fastest way in which to find him. Face dearly hoped that the Santa Monica Pier (along the highway and between Malibu and LAX), had distracted the pilot long enough to calm himself down. He wasn't enthusiastic about trying to track him down at one of America's busiest airports.

Another car buzzed towards him, an old Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible and from the hair whipping around, Face could tell that the driver was female. She was driving much slower on the road - despite the guardrail she was probably nervous. As the two cars neared each other, he lowered his sunglasses to see her. As they zipped past she threw him a wink through her light brown, blonde-streaked hair. Glancing in his rearview, he saw her holding her hand up and chuckled to himself. _Hello to you too._

Feeling a little less anxious, Face rounded the next corner faster than before - and of course slammed on the brakes. The car howled and left black streaks on the road, and Face nearly rolled it turning the wheel, but when all was said and done, the smoke cleared to reveal Murdock grinning widely. "Faceman!"

"_Murdock!_" Face boomed, relief and rage mixing. He got out of the car, slamming the door and went at his friend with fists up, torn between hugging him and knocking his lights out. Murdock made no defensive move, just spreading his arms wide like he was going to hug Face regardless of what the furious man did, and Face pulled the punch at the last minute, socking him gently in the shoulder and then yanking him into a hug. "What the hell were you thinking, standing in the middle of the road on a turn of the Pacific Highway?"

"I was thinking I'd get the next car to stop no matter what," Murdock replied, pulling away from Face. "Billy's tired of walkin'."

Another car roared by them, a sharp honk issuing as it passed, and Murdock wrinkled his nose. "Stupid California drivers."

Face knelt in front of the empty space beside Murdock and pretending to rub the dog's head. "Your paws hurtin' you, ol' boy?" He glanced up at Murdock. "Did he step on a rock?"

Murdock shook his head. "No. I think the ground's just too hot for him."

"Well, let's get him in the car."

As the two men climbed in, Face tilted his head in curiosity. "So...you all right? Last night you..."

"I know," Murdock cut him off. "I'm sorry, Face." He drifted off as Face turned the car around, and for a moment those green eyes stared off into the distance, reflecting the sunlight turning his skin golden and his hair light. "Did I hurt Bossman?"

"No," Face replied. "He's fine."

"You're all going insane, Face," Murdock said, picking Billy up and stroking him. Billy apparently wanted none of it as Murdock turned rapidly to make sure the dog got into the backseat all right. "You'll be workin' in my world before too long at least. And I know B.A. couldn't handle that. He's not built to handle insanity. It's part of why he doesn't like me. Y'all need to wake up and do something about it. He's got to be protected."

"What are you talking about?" Face asked. "B.A. likes you. He's just got a different way of showing it. And stop talking nonsense about how 'we' need to do something about it. _You_ need to help us as the certified psychological expert."

"I don't know _what_ to do, Face."

"That makes all of us, buddy. We all know the problem, but no one knows how to fix it."

"Even Bossman?"

Face pursed his lips. "Yeah."

Murdock sighed and tilted his head back, letting the wind whistle through his hair. "It's too bad we haven't run into Lynch or lost any more top secret government objects. Maybe we can find and kidnap El Diablo for a few hours? Just remind them we're out here?"

Face snorted back a laugh at Murdock's nickname for Charissa. "That would definitely work, if she didn't kill us for catching her in the first place."

Murdock chuckled for a moment before closing his eyes. His thin lips continued to move, and Face tried to catch the words being blown away by the wind. Ribbons of sound came through, and Face smiled. He was singing 'Right Round', which brought back memories of Mexico and their first meeting, which also brought back memories of Tuco's wife. That had been one hot 'quesadiche', if you pardon the expression. He would have done a lot more to save her, if Tuco hadn't caught them in the act, and then bound him up in a bunch of tires. That hadn't been part of the plan at all...

Face paused in his thinking as the words 'save her' seemed to echo in his mind. After a moment, he remembered his words to Hannibal the previous night. _We need a job._

_ I was trying to save her._

"Murdock," Face murmured, "you're a genius."

Murdock didn't reply. He was too busy trying to keep Billy from hanging himself over the edge of the car.


	4. Chapter Three: Camouflage and Cakes

**Chapter Three: Camouflage and Cakes**

"There's being on the jazz, and then there's just plain insanity. Which side of the line am I on right now?"

Teresa Kelly couldn't help that she talked to herself sometimes. No sisters or brothers, no pets, and at least nine years of no parents tended to make one realize that, in the end, having a conversation with yourself was one of the most useful ways to figure out a problem. Or to stop being afraid. Unfortunately, at this immediate point in time, talking to herself wasn't doing anything but making Tessa look certifiably nuts.

"I'm standing in a dark alleyway in downtown Los Angeles at five o' clock in the afternoon talking to myself. I think insanity is the word of the day."

Yep, that summed it up. She glanced at herself and then leaned against the graffiti-marked brick wall, her fingers reaching into the pocket of her white shorts to wrap securely around the mace there. This whole situation was getting just a little too crazy. In the past week she'd already been approached by two sets of people who 'wanted to talk to her'. The first set had wanted her to join their modeling agency, and over coffee she'd listened to their credentials and even spoken to one of the models. The business seemed legit enough, and it would be a nice little add-on to the bimonthly paychecks she already received.

The second group of people had been suits. She'd run into them shortly after jumping off the karaoke stage that morning in the Santa Monica Pier. She'd been quite relieved to see them, actually – during her impromptu rendition of 'Right Round', she'd noticed a scruffy-looking man under a red baseball cap and what looked like three shirts eyeing her. She'd bolted from the stage in as much uncertainty as embarrassment. A quick look behind revealed that the man was looking for her, but she'd gotten herself under cover quickly enough. Keeping herself low, she'd speed-walked for the edge of the Pier, wondering if she should try to hide somewhere or just risk exposing her little convertible to strange eyes. As it was, she had run into the suits before reaching her car. Things had gotten interesting from there. Instead of pulling her into a black sedan and giving her an offer she couldn't refuse, they'd told her to meet them at five in an alleyway near the airport. The fact that they'd flashed badges suggested that this was another legit meeting, but Tessa wasn't taking any chances. She carried a phone, a house key, a car key, mace, and nothing else. She'd even hidden her Eclipse a few streets away.

The sound of an approaching car tensed her up, and she kicked away from the wall, dusting off her tie-dyed tank top. Her hand, sweating a little, clutched the mace in her pocket. "I'm insane," she murmured aloud as a black sedan parked itself at the entrance to the alleyway. A plane roared overhead, flying off to some wonderful destination, an Tessa glanced at it, feeling the same roll of dread she always felt whenever she looked at an airplane. The hand not holding the mace touched her stomach in memory.

A few men in black got out and positioned themselves near the car. Shortly after, a leggy blonde with her hair in a professional bun and a Taylor Lautner lookalike (minus the mashed nose) emerged from the car. Tessa tilted her head and looked the woman up and down, her curious eyes taking in the pinstripe suit that made her look a foot taller and the play of setting sunlight on her hair that made her look a little like a dangerous angel. From the way she walked, Tessa could tell she was in charge. Taylor Lautner hung back a couple steps.

"Teresa Kelly?" the woman asked.

"Who's asking?" Tessa replied.

The woman smiled. "I'm Special Agent Jessica Teegan with the Los Angeles branch of the FBI. This here is Special Agent Jacob Haskell."

"Don't you mean Jacob Black?" Tessa snorted. "Seriously, we're in Los Angeles and you're telling me that's not Taylor Lautner with a fixed nose?"

"That's not Taylor Lautner with a fixed nose," Jessica Teegan said with a smile. She pulled out her badge and gestured for Haskell to do the same. Tessa leaned forward to look again and – sure enough – the badges certainly looked real. She slowly released the mace and pulled her hand out of her pocket, wiping it nervously.

"So…why am I here, Special Agent? I haven't stolen any underwear or seen any aliens, and I still have three more months to file my taxes."

"We have a very simple question for you. How would you like to help out the FBI?"

Tessa's eyebrows jumped, as did her adrenaline levels. Her stomach curled over in anxiety – and unbridled excitement. Taking a deep breath, she said: "If it was that simple you would have asked me that at the Pier."

Teegan nodded. "Perhaps so. But let's get an answer before we continue."

Tessa hesitated. She had a feeling that once she agreed, things were going to happen very fast. _I'm not too sure about this._ "How about you tell me how likely I am to get killed helping you, then we talk?"

"Not likely at all. We just need you to watch something."

Tessa nodded slowly. "TV or DVD?"

"Real life."

"What's it on?"

"Your modeling agency. We need you to go to your appointment as planned."

Tessa tilted her head. "How did you….never mind. I wasn't planning on canceling on these guys – the extra money's enough to keep gas in my car and food on my table. What about a modeling agency has _your_ wind up, though?"

"That's why we want you to go in. Find out what makes us nervous."

Tessa blinked. "_That's_ informative. So how much do you pay the bait? And what kind of protection are you offering?"

"You'll be well protected. Market price on bait is two thousand right now."

"Two thousand dollars to go model?" Tessa laughed. "What is this, a joke?"

Teegan shook her head, her eyes growing serious. "Far from it."

Tessa tensed up. "Is this dangerous?"

"It might be."

"Do I have a choice?"

"Do you want to make one?"

Tessa snorted. "Did you earn your degree in Cryptic Responses, Special Agent?"

"There's not much more I can tell you unless you're going to help us, Miss Kelly. Two grand to make a modeling appointment or you walk away. "

Tessa gulped and looked down. A part of her – the part that was still eighteen and still frightened of the world – told her in no uncertain terms was she to take this offer. She was to get in her Eclipse and get the hell out of California just as fast as she could. _There's more adventure back East. You haven't seen a tornado in Kansas or walked the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Getting involved with the FBI is not how you plan to live your life._

But then the part of her that was twenty-seven spoke up. _When are you ever going to get asked a question like this again? When are you ever going to get a choice like this again? Live your life the way you want to live it, remember?_

Tessa took in a deep breath and then shrugged. "Why not?"

Teegan nodded. "We'll give you $500 tomorrow, when you meet the people who are going to be helping you. Be at Tastes at eleven p.m. The rest of it will come after you're done with your modeling. Do you need a ride back to your place?"

"No," Tessa replied.

"Then good night." Teegan nodded to her, and then melted back towards the car. Within a couple of seconds Tessa was alone, wondering what the hell she had just signed up for.

B.A., more relieved to see the pilot than he wanted to admit, had bravely settled himself in the dining room, keeping a watchful eye on Murdock, who had come in full of muttering apologies. Hannibal had given the pilot a hug, telling him 'never to do that again', then scruffing up his hair. Face had then clapped him on the shoulder and told him they were going to a strip club the next night. Murdock had put his hands on his knees and laughed until he cried...and then realized Face was serious. The look that came into his eye then elicited an "Aw hell no," from B.A. and Murdock had walked into the kitchen, giggling evilly. A little more nervous about tomorrow now, Face and Hannibal had seated themselves on the plus couch, watching the afternoon news on the big-screen plasma, though Hannibal had a pretty good feeling that neither of them were really paying attention. It didn't matter; it allowed him to return to the state of calm he'd been lacking in the past week. The situation hadn't really changed much, but at least the worst of the tension had exploded with Murdock.

Hannibal turned to Face as the show went to commercial, and was surprised to see a small smile on his XO's lips. His eyes were blank, faraway, and his hands were moving as though he was speaking sign language - or trying to talk out a plan with his hands. He'd not been one to speak without gestures. His first real plan had involved a shell game, for Christ's sake. Hannibal couldn't help but feel the tiny spark in his stomach at Face's concentration, and he slowly stood up to go check on Murdock.

In the dining room, B.A. was absently amusing himself with a game of solitaire, giving surreptitious glances to the kitchen. Hannibal hadn't heard any loud bangs and there wasn't much in the way of smoke, so Murdock evidently hadn't gotten started yet. He leaned in past the doorway to see the pilot seated cross-legged on the counter, a book open on his lap and a lollipop in his mouth. Murdock glanced up when he came in and sprang off the counter, gesturing wildly but not saying a word. Hannibal glanced at B.A., who narrowed his eyes and stood up. Murdock included him in the mix, and the three men huddled together.

"What's for dinner, fool? All this and you ain't even started yet?" B.A. hissed.

"Order a pizza," Murdock hissed back. "I'm workin' on a cake for Face. It's his birthday tomorrow."

"We know that," B.A. muttered.

"Then get him out of the house!" Murdock snapped softly. "I start mixing cacao and cocoa and putting marshmallows in the microwave and he's gonna come walkin' in right when the door blows off!

"What the hell are you talkin' about?"

"I'm baking him a s'more cake," Murdock jabbed his finger at the book. "Getting some good ideas from ol' Willy Wonka himself. Face knows the secret sauce..."

"...we all do, fool..."

"...and gunpowder would just blow up the cake. I gotta improvise more, which means I gotta experiment, which means I need him out of the house!"

"You're not really improvising if you're taking ideas from Willy Wonka," Hannibal pointed out.

Murdock puffed up like a peacock. "I am not taking anything! I'm improvising on what he did!"

"You are gonna blow this house up, Murdock," B.A. grumbled.

"But Face won't be in it when I do!" Murdock smirked.

"Captain," Hannibal broke in, "we can get Face out of the house tomorrow for most of the day. Can you wait until tomorrow?"

Murdock gave him a serious look, then licked a finger, dogeared the book, and shut up. "Sure thing, Bossman."

"What's for dinner?"

Murdock blinked. "I wasn' jokin'. Order a pizza. I need my creative faculties in top shape tomorrow, and I ain't gonna get that workin' on a dinner tonight."

It was B.A.'s turn to puff up, but Hannibal put a quick hand on his shoulder. "Pizza's fine for tonight."

Murdock, aware of how close he'd come to death, quickly slipped out of the kitchen. Hannibal gave B.A. a comforting pat on the shoulder, and reached for the phone.

It rang.


	5. Chapter Four: A New Hope

**Hey everyone! Hope you're having fun. This is my first time attempting to write short chapters instead of super long ones, so I know things are moving slow. I'm trying to pick up the pace. Oh, and given what happens in this chapter, the titular nod to Star Wars is totally intentional. **

**Again, I very much appreciate reviews. They help keep me writing!**

**Chapter Four: A New Hope**

"All right, Mister Wonka, it's _on_."

Murdock pressed his chef's hat firmly onto his head and deftly tied his 'Kiss the Cook' apron around his waist. His eyes, normally full of laughter, stared icy daggers at the competition propped up against the window, open of course to 'The Chocolate Room.' He wrinkled his nose at the indolent little book. "I am the greatest, fool." He imitated B.A.'s roughest voice and decided he liked the sound of it bouncing off the walls. He'd have to use it again.

The competition was fierce. After a thorough scouring of the book last night, the furthest Murdock had been able to go was decide to make Face a chocolate cake. Determined to show Wonka a thing or two, Murdock had woken up and dressed himself in the three shades of chocolate - black shirt, brown pants, and white apron. He'd thought about trying to put on gloves, but none of his gloves were clean enough to be used in cooking, and so he was bare-fisted and combat-booted. And alone. In a two-story Malibu mansion.

To say B.A. had been hesitant to leave that morning would be an understatement. Face had been completely confused, never before leaving the house with more than one person at his side. Hannibal had commented that he was simply going to work early, but Face had pointed out that B.A. didn't work until one. B.A. had almost managed to talk Hannibal into letting him stay, but Murdock had pointed out that if B.A. stayed in the house, Billy would have someone to keep him company, (because Murdock, of course, had to clean his room today, and there could be no dog hair in the room because then it wouldn't be clean!) B.A. had, of course, decided to leave, saying he 'wasn't goin' to care for no imaginary dog.' That had left Murdock with the problem of tying up his little border collie in the living room. The dog's piteous whimpers nagged at his conscience as he set out the weapons of war. Chocolate. Bowls. Spoons. Eggs. Flour. Mix. He lined them up in a neat little row, then walked over and turned one of the pages of the book.

Twenty minutes later, he was frantically fanning away smoke from the red-hot door of the oven. He'd completely forgotten that he'd set it to preheat the moment he'd woken up that morning, hoping that the oppressive heat would push Face out of the house quicker. This would set him back an hour or so while he got the oven to cool to a temperature that would bake a cake, not grill it, (though grilled chocolate was next on his list of things to try). Groaning, he put the eggs back into the fridge and wandered into the living room to watch some TV.

Two hours later he walked back into the kitchen, feeling guilty. Afternoon TV was really, really addictive – especially those judge shows where two girls were mad cause one had slept with her boyfriend, and the other tried to justify the cheating because 'the other girl didn't put out enough.' He'd been thoroughly amused to the point of forgetting what time it was, and he realized he didn't have a whole lot of time left before the other three came home.

Still no ideas. He was losing his touch. With an angry grunt, he pounded the table with an angry fist. "Well," he said aloud, "what's the one thing they'll never expect out of me?"

_A perfectly normal cake._

"Then that's what I'll do."

Cracking his knuckles, Murdock got down to work. He mixed, measured, tasted, and preheated (only for the required amount this time). When the goopy goodness had achieved brown perfection, he prepared to pour it neatly into the cake pan...and stopped. He stopped primarily because his eye caught a bottle under the sink - and a tiny smile spread over his face. _A dash of antifreeze on the steak, and a splash of Pine Sol in the cake! What do you say to that, Mister Wonka?_

The cake slid into the oven and Murdock dusted off his hands before scrounging around the kitchen for icing. He found himself rather badly let down as his fingers located an almost completely-full canister of chocolate cream cheese frosting. There was a single spoonful taken out of it, and he wondered which member of the A-Team had a sweet craving. Certainly not Bossman, he _ate_ cigars. Face, maybe? Oh, Bosco. Now that would be perfect. A sucker for kids and sugar. This required study, and Murdock filed it away for later, his excitement restored and a wicked grin unseen by anyone (save for Billy) under his sparkling eyes.

Now the finishing touch. Chocolate cake with frosting was normal. Chocolate cake with frosting that said 'Happy Birthday Faceman' was from the heart. Except on his second run through the kitchen, Murdock realized he couldn't find any powdered sugar in which to write said message.

So he took one step back from powdered sugar.

Face knew he had ample reason to believe his virtual kidnapping from the house that morning had something to do with the fact that he was turning 37 today. What made him nervous about it was that Murdock was the one left in the house alone. Having a functionally insane best friend made life interesting, but he dearly hoped they wouldn't find their mansion as a pile of concrete with Murdock in the middle, covered in dust when they returned home.

He was a cross between relieved and honestly surprised, then, when Hannibal and B.A. gestured for him to walk in the front door and the only thing that greeted him was a strong smell of chocolate. He had a feeling he knew what was coming, and couldn't take the grin off of his face. Walking into the dining room, he was greeted with shouts of "Happy birthday!" and the image of Murdock dancing around with a party hat, tooting a noisemaker horn. He looked no worse for wear, considering a light dusting of powdered sugar on his black and brown outfit and his red baseball cap crooked on his head. He smelled great – kind of a sweet, soft smell that likely came from baking chocolate. And the cake on the table – even after blowing out the candle, Face could not see anything wrong with it. It wasn't charred, it looked like the frosting was evenly – even artistically – applied, the message was clear, and when Murdock cut the first piece no funny smells or creatures came creeping out.

"You losing your touch, buddy?" he asked teasingly, accepting the piece.

Murdock groaned. "I must be. I memorized Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and just couldn't come up with anything new."

Face took a bite of the cake. Admittedly, there was an odd flavor to it – something strangely familiar but not necessarily Bell's-palsy-inducing. After a few seconds of chewing, he lifted his eyebrows to Murdock. "Did you put lemon in this?"

"You could say that."

Bosco, who had already nibbled his way around his piece, stopped short. "What did you put in this, Murdock?"

"Lemon flavor," Murdock replied innocently. "If you don't like it, Bosco, you don't have to eat it."

"Where'd you get the lemon flavor from?"

"Now Bosco….you're just being paranoid. What kind of a good cook doesn't have ample stock of lemon juice?"

Hannibal was halfway though his own piece and nodding. "This is surprisingly normal for you, Murdock."

"No offense, Bossman, but my creativity is reflective of my boredom."

Hannibal cracked a small smile. Face continued eating, still tasting that oddly-familiar flavor but just not able to place it. Murdock suddenly stood and hurried back into the kitchen. He came back bearing four glasses and a jug of milk. He poured a glass for everyone before sitting back down and finishing his cake in a couple of large gulps. "Milk and chocolate always goes hand-in-hand, eh chaps?"

"On the subject of your boredom," Hannibal spoke up suddenly. Six eyes turned to him and he put down his cake. "I have something to tell all of you." He smiled at Face, his blue eyes twinkling. "You could call it a birthday present if you want."

Face began to smile, laying down his cake too.

"That phone call last night wasn't a prank call." Hannibal nodded to Bosco. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you all sooner, but I thought I would tell you all tonight. We're not just celebrating Face's birthday at the strip club. The FBI needs our help."

Face's eyes widened, and Bosco sat back with an: "Aw hell YEAH," but Murdock's reaction was the largest. He slapped his hands on the table, leaped up onto his chair, and sprang a good three feet into the air, letting out a bellowing: "_WHOOOOO-HOO-HOOOOOO!" _Without really thinking, Face stood up and moved Murdock's chair so he didn't trip on it when he landed. Then, he spent a few moments trying to get the ecstatic pilot to stop giving him a bear hug.

"Oooh...Murdock...get off...we gotta hear the details! Hannibal...what was it..."

Hannibal's face had broken out into a wide smile at the 180 atmospheric change. He folded his hands and sat forward, eyes almost glittering with excitement. "I'm afraid I don't know much more than that. I spoke to a Special Agent Teegan who said we needed to meet her at Tastes at eleven p.m. tonight."

"That's all?" Face asked.

"You sure that's not a prank call?" Bosco chimed in.

"I don't think so, but I can't be sure," Hannibal confessed. "However while I'm not inclined to think it is a prank, I will encourage all of you to be on your guard tonight. We probably should not be seen together at the club..."

"No," Face broke in. Hannibal looked at him. Face shook his head. "No. The point was for all of us to go out together, Hannibal. If you're nervous about this being some sort of setup, let's go to a different club and sneak over to Tastes at eleven p.m. Or let's stay in the house until time, and then we head over there. But we are not splitting up inside that club."

Hannibal was silent, eyeing Face, and then Bosco spoke up. "Six months without a word ain't done nothin' but make us all paranoid, Hannibal. We the A-Team. If it's an ambush, we escape. If it's legit, we get to do something with ourselves for the first time in months."

"I was lookin' forward to the strip club," Murdock added. "Seemed like a good thing to do with you boys, since none of you want to play Super Smash Brothers anymore."

"We tired of you cheatin' at that game," Bosco muttered.

"Sore loser," Murdock threw back.

"All right!" Hannibal doused the argument before it got out of control. "All right. We'll go to the club together, but keep on your guard."

"Sure thing, Bossman."

"All right, Hannibal."

Face didn't respond. He had just remembered Murdock's scent when they'd first walked in the door - the scent that had been kind of sweet and familiar all at the same time. The same scent that was rising from the cake - and now from Face himself. He pulled at his shirt, stuck his nose in it, and inhaled. Instantly, he sneezed a few times before looking Murdock in the eye.

"Murdock...is that my baby powder on the cake?"

Murdock's wide grin didn't change. "We were out of powdered sugar."

Bosco stood up, but Murdock was already running for the door.

**Please leave me a review? I'll post pretty pictures of the boys!**


	6. Chapter Five: Heading Out

**Chapter Five: Heading Out**

Face stood at the door to his walk-in closet, staring blankly at the rows of shirts and pants in front of him. The bright light from the closet shimmered down on an art gallery of clothing, neatly hung according to type, then color. Blue, green, grey, white - Face didn't go much for the reds and yellows and God help the man who tried to put a purple shirt in his closet, (Murdock had tried it. Once. He and Face hadn't spoken for a week). And brown? Forget it. He was tan enough, he didn't need to wear a shirt that made him look like a chocolate bar.

However, color was only one factor in choosing clothing. After that came type. Loose T-shirt, baggy t-shirt, snazzy button-down, casual polo...he didn't own any sleeveless shirts. Too broad in the shoulders. Made him look like a wrestler who was trying too hard. And then in back, of course, his Army dress. Bagged and untouched since...the court martial.

With an angry sigh, Face turned away from his closet and stalked to his bed, clad only in a pair of plaid boxers. His overhead light gleamed down on his skin, accentuating the flow of muscle and curve of shoulder. Outside, trees tapped hopefully on his window, and a bright moon surrounded by stars gleamed defiantly against the city lights. Los Angeles…and Tastes…was waiting.

He jumped a mile when the door flew open. Murdock stood in his doorway. "Face, you're worse than more women I know when it comes to getting dressed." He leaned against the doorframe, smirking slightly. "Clothes are only optional for women at strip clubs."

"What women do _you_ know?" Face replied, a little grouchily.

"Face." Murdock spread his arms. "I work at a movie theatre. I see girls. And women. And they don't come to work in their uniforms all the time."

Face gave Murdock another glare, this one a little more curious. He didn't really know anything about Murdock's job, or place of work, or any of the people he worked with. He didn't really know any of that about any of them. Well, that was partially the idea. Catch up. Reform bonds of friendship. And tell them your idea.

"Fine, Murdock," he sighed. "I'm just..."

"Business or pleasure?"

Face blinked. "What?"

Murdock moved into the room, heading for Face's closet. "You can't decide if you need to dress for business or pleasure, right?"

Face stared at Murdock. He would never confess this to anyone, but he sometimes found himself glaring at the other members of the A-Team, wondering when the hell they would learn how to dress themselves. The only one who seemed to have a clue was B.A, who at least acknowledged that he couldn't wear much else other than a sleeveless shirt because, quite frankly, he stretched every T-shirt he was in. His hefty frame often didn't do too well in jeans though, and Face flinched every time B.A. wore them. Hannibal was strictly a jeans and T-shirt type of guy, and while Face acknowledged that part of him, the man really needed to learn how to put on a button-down and a pair of slacks. Polos did not work on this man. And Murdock - well granted Murdock had his own style, but he was the only one of the four who really made shorts work without looking too knobbly-kneed. That and he needed to wear sleeveless shirts more often. He just had too much energy for T-shirts, and often ended up ripping them.

The only man Face could not seem to turn his high-powered judgment on was himself. But then again, he often thought he just looked the best no matter how he was dressed. It was how he'd been raised and it made him a little - well - snobby.

Right now, though, he was a little surprised. He hadn't necessarily expected Murdock – who more often than not wore three mismatched shirts and ragged jeans – to even know the difference between business and pleasure outfits. Looking at him now as he walked into the closet, Face realized he really did look comfortable, (which was, after all, the most important part of any type of fashion). He wore a black sleeveless wifebeater under an oversized red Hawaiian shirt and blue jeans that clung nicely to his hips. His red Airborne hair settled backwards on his brown hair, and his face was clean of any stubble.

"Faceman..." Murdock leaned out. "It's your birthday. Wear whatever you want. To hell with the FBI." He jerked a thumb at the door. "Hannibal's wearin' jeans and a T-shirt, and Bosco's got some plan with a vest and a pair of jeans. I'm wearin' jeans. Maybe you should at least wear jeans."

"That's the thing," Face said, trying to accept help from this unexpected source while still maintaining his own standards. "Never wear jeans to a strip club."

Murdock blinked. "Why not?"

Face paused, a little taken aback. How in the hell was he going to explain this to Murdock? "Well...erm...it doesn't really feel good..."

"Oh I get it. It's cause of the lap dances, right?" Murdock patted his thighs. "Jeans are rough. They hurt the girls' legs."

That hadn't been what Face was talking about, but he let Murdock run with it. "Exactly."

"Huh. Well, I better go tell the others. If you can't pick anything else, wear this." Murdock pulled a pair of khakis out of the closet as well as a light blue baggy T-shirt. He threw them at Face before heading for the door. Over his shoulder, he added: "Baggy shirt so the girls won't see you sweat, and blue cause it makes your eyes stand out." Then, he was out the door, leaving Face a little disturbed, quite confused, and very surprised.

Approximately forty minutes later, four men exited the two-story Malibu mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean and piled into the Pilot, (Murdock wouldn't let them get any other vehicle once he'd spotted the name). With a squeal of tires, they vanished into the distance, heading for the neon lights of Los Angeles. Under a cloudless, star-speckled sky, the Pilot navigated the curves of the Pacific Highway with precision more reminiscent of its driver than the vehicle itself, and faint ribbons of music leaked from the rolled-down windows. At one point a head emerged, holding onto a red baseball cap, and a whoop filled the air, followed by a low: "Get that crazy fool back in here!" After a few more seconds, the sweet stench of a cigar joined the salty air.

Hannibal Smith listened to the controlled chaos around him, this time much more relaxed than he had been two nights ago at the oceanside. He couldn't stop the little jumble of excitement that clenched his stomach - not necessarily because of the women waiting for them, but rather because of the potential for a job. It was a lifeline that the four had been begging someone to throw them for a long time. It could be the answer to the question none of them had been able to address: what now? It could be a trap. And for the first time, Hannibal found himself almost hoping it was. Because as B.A. had said earlier: "if it's an ambush, we escape."

"_Give my team six months_," he had said once. "_We're unbeatable_."

Adrenaline pumped through his veins and he let out a low chuckle. _This is more like it._

It wasn't too much longer before B.A. turned the Pilot into the low-slung strip mall just off Hollywood Blvd. Face slowly began to smile as B.A. began to complain about the lack of parking, and he pointed at the little entrance squished between a Thai restaurant and (appropriately enough) a laundromat. "Everyone's goin' there, B.A. This is the hottest place in town, or so I've heard."

"You've been planning this, haven't you Face?" Hannibal chuckled as B.A. parked the Pilot a few slots away.

"Well I wasn't going to take you guys to a low-quality establishment," Face defended.

"I don't know, Hannibal," B.A. said. "This place has too many people and too few escape routes."

"Oh, will you all just give it a rest?" Murdock asked. He flung the door open and with a loud: "YEEE-HAAA!" sprang from the car, his shirt billowing oddly behind him.

"Face," Hannibal began, but Face was already out of the Pilot, almost tripping over himself to catch up to Murdock, who was beelining straight for the entrance.

"Aw hell," B.A. groaned as he and Hannibal jumped from the car.

"Yep," Hannibal said. "It just goes uphill from here."

The four men walked through the nondescript entrance, (marked only by a flickering neon sign that read 'Tastes'), and a short descension of steps later, the world closed up into a dimly-lit room marked by a heavy, thick scent. Hannibal's nostrils flared as he tried to pick up each individual part of the cocktail, and a part of him had to swallow against it. A combination of various perfumes, alcohol, sweat, and of course the telltale threads of scent that can only be described as sex. Steam and smoke filled the room, but a firm hand on his shoulder and an angry glare from the bouncer told him what he needed to know: no smoking. With an apologetic smile, he snuffed the cigar and continued inside. Must be from the show.

Once inside, Hannibal's instincts took over. A small bathroom sat just to the side of the entrance inside an alcove. A quick glance at Murdock revealed what Hannibal already knew: the place was small and crowded enough to make a claustrophobic nervous. Adding to the tension was the realization that there was only one way in and one way out, Behind all of the bodies settled at the tables, Hannibal discerned the horseshoe style setup favored by strip clubs. A single pole extended welcomingly up in the center of the room, bare for now but not, Hannibal suspected, for long. The bar sat up near the brightly-lit stage, which had three poles complete with cross bars at the top, which lifted Hannibal's eyebrows. Despite the overall dingy appearance, the floor was neat and the none of the tables looked cracked or broken. Most interestingly, Hannibal noted a jukebox perched on the side of the wall. A young woman dressed in only a bra and panties was entering a number. A few seconds later Marilyn Manson burst through the speakers. Turning slowly to Face, Hannibal's eyes asked what his lips dared not, (for fear of hysterical laughter).

Face answered him by pointing.

Hannibal turned around in time to see the young woman - four times tinier than she had looked now that he realized she was wearing five-inch heels, shimmy up the pole in the center of the room, clasp it firmly between her legs, and begin an upside down dance. On the stage, another dancer was kicking it through the poles like water - without touching the floor.

"_Daymn_," B.A. murmured.

"Quality establishment," Hannibal approved. He allowed Face to lead them to a table, and it was only when the three of them had sat down that he finally realized that something was off.

"Where's Murdock?"

Face and B.A. instantly tensed, looking around. "Oh no," Face groaned. "He was right next to me."

"Fan out and find him," Hannibal said.

"Find who?"

Murdock materialized behind them, settling into a seat and plunking his baseball cap firmly on his head. His green eyes twinkled with laughter and his face crinkled under a wide smile. "Y'all remember to use the bathroom? You're not supposed to go into a strip club without makin' room, you know?"

"Where were you?" Hannibal asked.

Murdock gave him a blank stare. "In...the...bathroom."

Hannibal tried to search the pilot's eyes for evidence of a lie, but was quickly thwarted by the challenge. Murdock was the only one who could resist his detection, but the man had such a sense of honesty there often was no need to be concerned. Which is exactly why Hannibal was concerned now.

"What's the plan, Face?" Murdock asked now, turning his gaze to the birthday boy.

Face gave him a wide grin. "Loosen up and have fun, Murdock."

Murdock blinked before looking at the stage, where the dancer was winding down her dance. Marilyn Manson was quieting on the jukebox. And another lady was eying their table with a curious stare. Her eyes met Hannibal's and he nodded to her, gesturing very slightly to Face. She smiled and began to cross towards them. Hannibal leaned in to speak to B.A. "Tell her it's Face's birthday. First round is on me." He stood up. "Beers, fellas?"

A chorus of assent came back to him, and he headed up towards the bar. Behind him, he heard B.A. say in a voice loud enough to carry: "It's this fool's birthday."

"Aw, B.A., no," Face groaned, but the girls had already all turned towards him.

**Sorry to leave it as a cliffhanger here, but I had this insane idea pop up in the middle of writing this chapter and I want to flesh it out before continuing.**

**I want to thank every reviewer personally. You are fifty percent of what keeps me writing...if I don't know how well (or how poorly) I'm doing, it's hard to continue, so I continue to ask for reviews! If bribing you all with pictures gets the job done, I shall. **

**I do want to add an apology for taking so long to update. I had something really cool happen to me. I was approached by a lovely lady who is also a major fan of Sharlto Copley, and she asked me if I would help her run the fansite and forum she is setting up for him! I got a little distracted getting started on that, which is why it took me so long to update here, but we are nearing launch which actually means I have more time to write (so expect quicker updates!). I will eagerly share this website link with anyone who is interested in Sharlto Copley once the site itself has been launched!**

**Finally, as promised, here is a link to some lovely photos. This is only a taste - if you review, I will put up more and more and more!**

***EDIT* Apparently I can't post links. Well it's a photobucket link so you start with that and go from there.**

.com/albums/xx329/MrAliensDita/The%20A-Team/


	7. Chapter Six: Just Dance

**Chapter Six: Just Dance**

Hannibal smirked widely as an only-slightly-protesting Face was hauled up onto the main stage shortly following B.A.'s announcement. He gathered up the handful of beers from the rather surly bartender and headed back to the table, where Murdock's face had brightened with anticipation and B.A. had begun to chuckle. His eyebrows climbed into his hairline as the girls bound Face to the chair. Face, for his part, was already turning red and the look he gave B.A. suggested the man was going to pay later. Murdock didn't help, letting out a war whoop and shouting: "Let him have it!"

The girls must have heard him because they sure did, putting on a song that Hannibal found all too appropriate, and beginning a routine that would have given any man problems. He took in the sight before him in sips - he hadn't really had this much exposure to this sort of thing for months now.

_"I wanna hold 'em like they do in Texas plays. Fold 'em, let 'em hit me, raise it baby stay with me."_

The five girls surrounding Face all had various bits and bobs on. The tiny Thai woman in heels and underclothing had swung down from her bar and sprang up now onto the crossbars above Face's head, doing an airborne routine that was as erotic as it was downright skilled. Two others wearing flashy miniskirts and low-cut shirts worked the floor in front of him, giving the birthday boy plenty to look at. The other two girls were obviously fetish dancers, as one of them looked like she was wearing an old World War II pilot jacket and hat over a bra and underwear (role-play, perhaps?), and the other one had on a stunning amount of leather and chains. The two of them danced a little separately from the others, performing a little more to the crowd.

_"Can't read my, can't read my, no he can't read my poker face."_

_All too appropriate for Face_, Hannibal thought as the man in question fought to hold his own, but admittedly having five girls perform for you at once was likely to keep any man's attention.

He was thankful Murdock had warned them about the jeans - only B.A. had refused to change and Hannibal wondered how much of a problem the man would be having later. For his part, he sat back and grinned, taking a swallow of beer and finding himself as interested as he was amazed at the dancers' ability. And beauty. He had to admit, the women were beautiful here, and most of them looked like honest dancers, not just a horde of rubbing flesh and flashing skins. Two of them headed off of the stage and towards the table where he and the others sat, having figured out that Face had come from their group. Hannibal gave a cursory, habitual glance around the room as they approached, and his eyes landed on a young couple standing near the entrance. They looked a little out of place; the woman had on a button-down blouse and pencil skirt and the young man with her had on a jacket. As Hannibal silently memorized their faces, his peripherals picked up on a small group of young men also looking at them. They didn't look too dangerous; just some kids, but something about the way they sat made Hannibal nervous. He made a mental note and glanced back at the couple...but they had already moved, heading for a table to sit down. A few seconds later, the dancer wearing the pilot's hat crossed his vision. She looked at him inquisitively and with an apologetic smile he shook his head and nodded to Murdock.

The girl's reaction surprised him - she glanced at Murdock and a look of such uncertainty filled her green eyes that Hannibal almost leaned forward to grab her arm. He withheld himself and narrowed his eyes. The girl looked like she was making a decision in her head, but before a look of resolve crossed her face, Murdock had turned and spotted her. His eyebrows shot up and his eyes did a quick once-over before moving to Hannibal. Hannibal quickly nodded, and Murdock looked back at the girl. He smiled. "Hello."

The girl bit her lip. Murdock's smile slowly faded into a matching look of uncertainty. "Erm..._hello_?" he asked a little louder.

The music faded in the background, a new and equally raunchy tune starting up. The music seemed to give the girl strength as she stopped biting her lip and offered a playful smile. "Hello!" she said back in a bright voice. She leaned forward, letting the pilot's jacket fall open a little more. Murdock's eyes flickered to her, then shot back to her face. He opened his mouth as though to speak, but all that came out was an "Uh..." A thin sheen of sweat broke out over his forehead. Hannibal did his best to hide a smile behind a swig of beer.

The girl traced a hand over Murdock's baseball cap and down his face without actually touching him. Murdock stiffened, his face torn between curiosity and interest, and a strange look blossomed in his eyes.

A strange look that Hannibal suddenly realized he knew.

_Oh, no._

The girl took a step closer to Murdock, but she drew back as he stood up in response to her. The look in his eyes reached down to his lips and pulled them into a mischievous smile. HIs right eye twitched into a wink.

And then _he_ started dancing.

To say he drew attention wasn't entirely off the mark. B.A. did a spit-take, spraying beer over the table, and Hannibal had to put a hand to his mouth to cover the laugh that wanted to come out. Up on stage Face, who had been receiving a lap dance from one of the girls, said something Hannibal didn't hear over the music. It stopped the blonde cold, and when she looked back her mouth dropped open too.

Murdock shrugged off his red shirt, baring his shoulders as well as his Ranger tattoo, and draped it neatly over the back of his chair before breaking out into a series of improvised moves that he must have picked up from watching MTV. The girl in front of him at first looked as though she had stuck her finger in an electrical socket, but Murdock let out an infectious laugh and bowed to her without missing a beat. "What, am I supposed to do this by myself?" he yelled to her.

"You're not supposed to do that at all, fool!" B.A. roared over the music, but Murdock ignored him, continuing to dance. To his credit, he didn't try to roust the club into a dance-along, for which Hannibal was deeply thankful. They hadn't been in there long enough to get kicked out. Instead, Murdock seemed entirely focused on getting the dancer in front of him to join him - which she slowly began to do, her face lighting up as she caught his fever. Up on stage, the blonde took an obvious effort in returning her attentions to Face, and despite a few amazed side glances (and one warning look from the bouncer), the stunned club slowly began to take their eyes off of the dancing pair.

"Crazy fool," B.A. muttered. "This ain't that kind of club."

"He's having fun, B.A., let him," Hannibal chided softly. "That's the point of tonight."

"I thought the point of tonight was to get that job," B.A. returned.

"The point of tonight was to remind ourselves that we're alive," Hannibal said. "We're alive, we're well, and we're relaxing. Don't worry about the job. They're here already. They'll come to us."

"How do you know that?"

"Drink your beer, B.A." Hannibal knew he was probably the only one of the four to pick up on the silent standoff beginning on the other side of the room. The boys he had been looking at earlier were now eyeing them, and the young couple, despite ordering drinks, were now also sneaking glances at their table. Hannibal felt a clutch of anxiety in his stomach - he wished Murdock would stop dancing. Could B.A. have been right, and this call was a trap? The couple looked harmless, but grouped up with those boys - that was six on four. Unless the four were on their own and the couple was - as Hannibal suspected - the FBI come to see them. It wasn't even eleven yet - they'd shown up early.

The song began to wind down, and Murdock and the girl wrapped up their impromptu dance. The girl's eyes were sparkling and Hannibal didn't miss the once-over she gave Murdock. Neither did Face, who was coming back to the table with the blonde in tow, his khakis a little mussed and his whole body flush. He gave Hannibal a surprised smile, and Hannibal winked at him. Face gestured for the blonde to take a seat, and then headed up to the bar. Murdock paused to grab a swig of beer, then abruptly offered it to the girl he had been dancing with. She took the bottle from him and sniffed the opening, then ran her tongue around the rim of the bottle and tossed back a gulp. Murdock swallowed. "Thanks," she said as the music faded out. "I needed that."

"You're welcome," Murdock replied before looking at the blonde in Face's seat. Then, he quickly swooped his shirt off of the chair, pulled it back on, and pulled out the chair. "Would you like a seat?

The girl grinned. "Naw. I'm supposed to stay on my feet. Besides, my shift just started." The blonde tilted her head and gave the girl a strange look - well, strange by Hannibal's standards. It looked like she had never seen the other woman before and was frantically trying to place a face.

"Can I take your jacket?" Murdock was bound and determined to do something for this girl.

The girl chuckled. "Nice try, but you have to pay me first."

Murdock blinked, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty. Where he got it from, Hannibal decided he didn't want to know. The girl looked equally surprised, but to Hannibal's utter amazement she took the money and shrugged off her jacket, revealing a smooth-skinned back and a black bra and panties. She held the coat out to the pilot, crossing the other arm over her stomach, Murdock's whole face turned a light shade of red, and he accepted the coat. The girl tucked the twenty into her black bra and sat down in Murdock's seat. The blonde looked absolutely scandalized, and she leaned forward, hissing for the others to hear: "Have you lost your mind? Do you even know what you're supposed to do here?"

"No," the girl replied. "I really don't. But he's paying me."

The blonde let out a furious sigh and stood up just as Face came back. With a sultry smile at him, she said: "Excuse me one quick moment." She reached out and grabbed the girl's arm, yanking her to her feet. The girl let out a cry of surprise as her hands came away from her stomach.

"Holy shit," Face said aloud.

A red gash, knotted with scar tissue, cut through the girl's stomach almost from one side to the other. The blonde gasped in horror, dropping her arm. Hannibal blinked in surprise, but it was B.A. who spoke first. "Who did that to you?"

"No one," the girl replied, her eyes wide and her face red with embarrassment. She pulled the twenty out of her bra and shoved it back at Murdock, who let it fall to the ground. She yanked her coat back on and buttoned it all the way. After a moment, she looked at all of them and tried to force a smile. "A dollar a button, boys, but you only get peeks. I have to give you all something to dream about."

"Don't get a mark like that without it bein' man-made," B.A. persisted.

"Yes you can," the girl argued back. "Trust me. Now are any of you going to pay?"

"I already did," Murdock said.

The girl hesitated as she realized he was right. Her eyes lowered to the twenty on the floor...beneath the shoes.

Slowly, she looked up.

Hannibal switched over instantly. Next to him, he felt B.A. turn. Face set down the beers.

The four boys he had been watching over the course of the evening stood in front of them now. Up close, he could see that they weren't that old - early twenties maybe - and marked up with tattoos and funky hairstyles. They wore loose pants and wifebeaters, and one of them had a piercing in his lip. Each of them radiated attitude, and the tension quickly closed Hannibal's throat.

"Quit hoggin' the chicks," one of them grumbled. "There's only five girls in tonight for th' crowd, and two of them are at your table."

"Well, we're attractive _men_," Face emphasized the word and Hannibal closed his eyes. _Don't do it, Face._

"Yer in the wrong club," another man grunted, looking at Murdock. "The fag bar is the next street over."

"Hey now," Face began, but Murdock broke in.

"Oh bollocks," he said in an accented voice, "the Yanks brought me to the wrong pub. When I said I wanted a fag, gentlemen, I wasn't talking about the little thing you smoke. And as much as I appreciate you trying to make it up to me..." he glared at the four men, "...I'm sure you can do better than _this_."

_This is what happens when we go too long without any action_, Hannibal thought in the second before the man's fist crashed into Murdock's face.

**So I had actually intended to write the strip club chapter as just one chapter...but now it's split into three parts. For those of you still with me, I appreciate your patience. I know the pace of the story is slow, but I promise you things will speed up, heat up, and get exciting in the chapters to come. In the meantime I ask that you continue to review, and I don't know if any of you are interested in this, but I already have a sequel in mind to this story. :D Enjoy and thank you for your time!**


	8. Chapter Seven: Happy Birthday, Face

**Chapter Seven: Happy Birthday, Face**

"_Watch out, here I come!"_

Murdock fully appreciated the irony of the next song as it started right on cue with the crushing pain that exploded across his face. The impact of the fist tilted him to the side, and he put a hand out to catch himself on the chair and keep from falling to the ground. The girl in the pilot's outfit let out a yelp and he had a glimpse of her legs scissoring as she backed away rapidly. Around them, small noises of surprise acknowledged the hit, but oddly enough Murdock didn't really feel embarrassment or frustration at being punched in public.

He felt _angry_.

At first, it didn't make sense. The man had been making fun of him, but he was above insults. He'd learned quite a while ago that being crazy often made you the butt of many jokes, so turning those jokes around or laughing at them was empowering. It didn't explain the overwhelming surge of energy that flooded him and bared his teeth at the man who had punched him. He dropped into a crouch, eyes narrowed and blood pressure rising. Behind him, he heard B.A. and Face jump to their feet, B.A. shaking the table and knocking over some beer bottles as he did so. The blonde let out a shriek and moved for the stage.

It was the look on Hannibal's face that answered the question Murdock had silently raised. It was a look of resignation, acceptance, even expectation. And he understood why. Hannibal had been waiting for _this_.

_"Well I, could trace your private number, baby."_

He came out of the crouch slowly and reached up to rub his jaw, which ached like hell. He felt something wet his fingers, and he licked them curiously. Yep. Blood.

"Well," he said in his own voice. "I suppose this is one way to relieve tension."

And he launched a merciless kick at the man's face.

Screams erupted through the club as six of the eight men leaped at each other, and most of the patrons jumped up and out of their seats. B.A. wasted no time, going straight through the table at one of the men who was going for Hannibal, swinging a fist powered by the full weight of his body. Face actually ducked a swing and chopped another man across the stomach before hitting him effectively on the back of the neck. One man down. But unfortunately for the birthday boy, the bartender across the room had been in baseball in high school. The flying bottle knocked him to his knees and he shook his head in disbelief as the bouncer bore down on him. B.A., seeing what was happening, tried to get there, but was stopped by another patron who figured he would join the fight instead of run from it. And Murdock...

Well, Murdock had managed to miss the man's face with his kick, glancing him firmly on the chest. The blow to his head had knocked him off his sense of balance, and the two of them had gotten into a wrestling fight on the floor of the club. Kicked by various running feet and frustrated by his baggy shirt, Murdock was doing everything he could to simply get the other man's weight off of him so he could breathe. The man didn't want to cooperate, pressing Murdock into the ground and scrabbling for a bottle to smash on his face.

Murdock wasn't looking forward to that. Hawking as hard as he could, he spit in the man's face. The man groaned and tried to wipe the spittle off, giving Murdock just enough time to jab him under the chin. The blow knocked the man sideways, and Murdock scrambled to his feet. With a desperate gasp he pulled his already-ripped red overshirt off, threw it to the ground, and leaped for the stage. Grabbing frantically at the pole, Murdock headed up, climbing hand over hand until he reached the crossbars at the top of the stage.

_"And I'd like to move in just a little bit closer."_

He was quite bruised up, and the fight wasn't over...the man was climbing onto the stage. The bouncer had reached Face, and was picking the man up off of the floor. Face yelled for B.A...but Murdock had other plans. He drew a lighter from his pants, flicked it, and held it up in the air...

_"You look like you're havin' fun..."_

"FACE!" he boomed.

The shout drew several pairs of eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, Murdock saw the bartender reach for another bottle of beer. _Warning: foul ball._

"Happy birthday!" he shouted.

On cue, the fuse hanging from the ceiling reached its end, and the fireworks Murdock had planted earlier exploded. Streams of light followed the pilot as he spun down the pole to the stage, (_"...like a record, baby..."_), barely dodging the bottle the bartender had frantically thrown.

Hannibal Smith missed a lot of the action. Which was fine, because he was busy getting himself into trouble outside the strip club.

When the club burst into movement - the A-Team finally unleashing six months of pent-up energy - Hannibal had only seen one thing: the leader of the four men, the one with the piercing, grabbing the girl in the pilot's outfit and heading for the exit. He looked like he was trying to guide her to safety, but with one hand on her shoulder and one on her head, Hannibal knew that he was just trying to drag her out regardless. So, thanks to B.A's assistance in avoiding being dragged into the brawl, Hannibal let out for the entrance, hell-bent on stopping the man from making it out the door with his prize.

He tackled the man outside the door in the night air, under the lights of the strip mall. All three of them crashed to the ground. People were shouting and yelling, running every which way from the brawl that looked as though it was spilling out onto the street. Hannibal drew back and punched the man in the face as the girl scrambled to her feet and tried to move away, back towards the crush of people. The man got to his feet and pulled a knife, the blade making a dull singing noise in the thick humidity. Hannibal's eyes widened and he began to follow the blade with his eyes, using his peripherals to watch the man. Almost on autopilot, he heard the strains of 'Right Round' floating up from the strip club and actually had time to chuckle at the irony.

"What you laughin' at, old man?" the man in front of him growled.

"A kid with a butter knife," Hannibal replied. "What do you want with the girl?"

"What do you think?"

Hannibal pretended to think while his eyes darted around. "She's your sister and you didn't want to see her in there?"

"Whatever helps you sleep." The man lunged and Hannibal sidestepped, tripping him neatly. He went down in a heap, the knife clattering away. Hannibal stepped on his arm and knelt on his back, pulling out a cigar and lighting up. _Ah._ He puffed a couple times on the cigar and blew smoke at the man's head.

"Whatever helps me sleep. Well. What helps me sleep is knowing that I'm going to escort that young lady back to her home so little boys like you don't try to take advantage of her."

The man groaned. Hannibal glanced up, looking for the girl to make sure she was all right.

He groaned softly.

The young couple he had been watching stood near the entrance, now fairly visible since the club was almost empty. The girl stood with them, watching with an almost smug smile on her face.

_Better and better._

Hannibal slowly stood. The man crawled to his feet and with a glance over his shoulder, lit out at a dead sprint as cop cars sounded in the distance. As Hannibal stood there in the silent standoff with the triple, the sound of an explosion echoed from the club. Everyone jumped.

_Face? B.A.? Murdock?_

Hannibal watched with wide eyes and a sinking stomach as smoke slowly began to pour through the door of the club. A couple more people emerged, coughing. One of them was the bouncer, dragging a hysterically laughing Face. The bouncer dropped the man and staggered off, still coughing and trying to wipe his eyes. Face knelt on the ground and held his stomach, laughing so hard he could barely keep his breath. Sweat and blood dripped from various cuts on his shoulders, and as he leaned back for air, Hannibal saw a bruise swelling under his eye. _ He'll hate that once he realizes it's there._

Shortly after, B.A. and the bartender came out, both looking fairly untouched. Bouncing out after them was none other than a bare-shouldered Murdock sporting an absolutely shiteating grin. He had burn marks on his shoulders, and bruises on his arms and face, but he was walking on his own.

Then, the bartender turned around and tried to attack him. Clearly prepared, B.A. grabbed the woman, successfully restraining her. Hannibal narrowed his eyes at Murdock, trying to figure out what was off about the man. After a few seconds he clued in. Murdock looked a little more unhinged than usual, his head tilted to the side and his eyes oddly unfocused. In fact, he looked as though he'd been knocked on the head...again.

On the ground, Face was slowly recovering his breath as he took in the sight before him. Hannibal noticed with interest that no one had laid eyes on the triple standing near the door, now all watching with various levels of mirth concealed behind hands. He stepped forward towards the struggling B.A.

"Ma'am?" he asked.

The bartender spun, her eyes flashing and her hair shooting ash. Hannibal decided not to ask what had happened. "Ma'am, we will pay for the damages, though you're going to have to give us some time to get the money together."

"He pays it!" the bartender snapped, jerking her head at Murdock. "He blew up my stage!"

"Blew up..." _I knew he wasn't in the bathroom._ And that explained the slightly off-kilter stare. Murdock must have been right next to the explosives when they went off. "I'm very sorry ma'am, he's not well in the head. We'll pay it, ma'am."

"What are we going to play?" Murdock shouted. On the ground Face collapsed in another fit of giggles and Hannibal let out a deep sigh. _The birthday boy is going hysterical, Murdock's relapsing, and my life savings is betting that that's the FBI over there watching the whole thing._

"B.A," he said. "Face."

B.A., who remarkably was keeping his cool, gave Hannibal a raised eyebrow. "You sure?"

"Yeah. We don't have time to mess around."

B.A. let go of the woman and walked over to Face. He grabbed the man and lifted him to his feet. Tears of mirth streamed down Face's cheeks, and he breathed in loud, laughing gasps. Shaking his head, B.A. groaned and then got nose to nose with Face. "_Snap out of it, fool!_" he roared.

Face continued to laugh.

So B.A. punched him in the jaw.

Face stopped laughing. The sound cut off, making the night suddenly very very quiet. The bartender decided she'd had enough, and as she bolted Hannibal noticed that the area had cleared as much as the parking lot - the last of the cars were speeding off, leaving the van brightly exposed under the yellow-orange lights. A steady breeze wafted in, cooling him and bringing some clouds with it. The background roar of the city eased into his eardrums, and the world seemed to slide back onto a keel he could deal with. _ Come on, boys. Come back._

"Thanks, B.A." Face murmured. "I needed that."

"What did you do that for?" Murdock shouted.

B.A. rolled his eyes and began to spin, his fist coming up for a good roundhouse to the pilot's slim face. Hannibal intervened, pulling Murdock out of the way. "He's been hit enough, B.A," he admonished, and then got in Murdock's face. "Look at me. Murdock. Look at me, son."

_I'm told you're a hell of a chopper pilot._

The memory was strong, even now. Mexico. Hannibal poured the focus of his ice-blue eyes into Murdock's sparkling green ones, willing the man to come back to reality. "Come on, Murdock."

Murdock blinked, and slowly the unhinged smile gained clarity and focus. "You missed a hell of a show, Bossman."

Hannibal began to smile. "Tell me about it later, Captain. We've got a job to do."

Face looked up, surprised. "Wait...you mean it's job time already? But we didn't even...talk."

Hannibal smiled at Face. "We'll talk, Face. Come on."

**I don't own 'Right Round', and I know this last part was originally in Chapter 8 - I've put it here so as to ease the transition into chapters 8 and 9. Please keep reading, I'll be posting up 8 and 9 soon (as I said in my note, I may even just post them together!)**


	9. Chapter Eight: Plots

**Well, I know it's been a while, but I'm back! If you have read this chapter before, I ask you to read it again – there have been enough significant changes. Also, if you are one of my current readers (i.e. you're not new to the story), please go back and read the beginning of chapter one. I was forced to add a piece of new information. I'm really sorry to do that to you, but it was necessary to keep going. It's not long.**

**Now this new chapter IS long – almost three times longer than any chapter I've done. But this particular evening has been stretched out enough, I think. Time to wrap it up all in one go! **

Chapter Eight: Plots

"That's some control you have, Colonel."

Face, Murdock, and B.A. all jumped, but Hannibal merely nodded as the well-dressed couple and the girl in the pilot's outfit came towards them. The woman had spoken, her eyes and face mildly amused. As they emerged into the light, Murdock tilted his head before raising a finger in the girl's direction. "Didn't I just see you...?"

The girl smiled, her eyes reflecting the light. "Yep. I'm with them." She jerked a thumb at the couple.

"And who are 'them'?" Face asked, his voice guarded.

The well-dressed woman flicked open a leather wallet revealing a Bureau badge. "Special Agent Jessica Teegan. This is Special Agent Jacob Haskell."

At the sight of the very-legitimate FBI badges, Hannibal felt an undercurrent of relief and excitement fill the air. Murdock tried and failed to hide a grin of excitement, while B.A. and Face exchanged glances that said _about time!_ Hiding his own private smile Hannibal stepped forward, taking charge. "And you wanted to talk to us about something."

"Yes," Agent Teegan placed her hand on the girl's shoulder. "We'd like to offer you a job."

"With the FBI? Doing what?"

"Surveillance."

"What kind?"

"Close quarters."

Hannibal blinked and let out a little snort. "Are you going to get to the point, Special Agent?"

"Don't worry," the girl said, "I had to drag every word out of her too."

Teegan took in a deep breath. "This young lady will be helping us investigate a modeling agency about whose motives we are concerned. She's doing an audition for them tomorrow. I need the four of you to make sure nothing goes wrong with that audition."

"You need us to help her win?" Face asked, incredulity heavy in his voice.

"No. I need you make sure she goes in and comes out of the same door."

"I'm the bait," the girl elaborated. "And apparently market price on bait is two thousand dollars, or I would _not_ be doing this. If the FBI's got me looking into a modeling agency because they're 'concerned', then they better be paying me something. From what they've told me, you're my protection. They want you to keep an eye on everything and make sure the audition is just an audition." She looked at Teegan. "For an FBI agent, you really don't know how to state a case, do you?"

Teegan's eyes grew stern. Behind her, Haskell shifted and looked down, but not before Hannibal saw the smile on his face. He at first wanted to agree - the girl in front of them was a spitfire all right - but there was something about Jacob Haskell's smile that put him on edge. It wasn't just a smile of amusement. There was something smug about it, something... beyond merely laughing at an agent being put in her place.

Hannibal's eyes narrowed and he looked back at Teegan. "Why her?"

"We saw her accept the offer." Teegan shrugged as the girl looked at her in surprise. "We've been trying to get a lead on the agency for weeks, but we can't spare anyone to do the undercover work, so we've been trying to find girls that are going in."

"Swiss cheese," Murdock whispered.

Hannibal understood - and agreed. There were so many holes in that sentence he didn't even know how to begin asking the questions that might help to fill them. He gave Teegan a look that suggested he was about to start questioning her - and stopped completely. Her eyes were wide, and fixed on his, saying only one thing: _Don't._ His stomach sank. The girl in the pilot's outfit was that special kind of bait that operations of this nature were more successful with: the unaware.

Looking at her now, he could see that she didn't look that old - no more than thirty, certainly old enough to understand when something fishy was wafted in front of her. Her words earlier had suggested that - she knew something was going on but for whatever reason, she wasn't questioning it. And Hannibal was wondering why. Despite himself, he focused a little more on her, noticing the lift of her chin, the confidence in her stance, and the wary resolve in her eyes. Earlier in the strip club, she had stood in front of all of them wearing nothing but a pair of underwear and a bra, a fiery red scar stretching over her stomach. She'd said that scar wasn't man-made. So what had cut her open?

She shifted uncomfortably and he blinked, suddenly aware he'd been staring. Color flooded into her cheeks. "I know I should be ready to be stared at, but really... do we need to practice now?"

Hannibal smiled gently. "I was just wondering where your bravery comes from. Not many women would willingly just take a job given to them by the FBI, particularly a job you just admitted might be more than a little 'concerning.'"

Tessa offered him a smile. "Runs in the family. My..." she hesitated and cleared her throat. "Sorry. My father was a pilot. Air Force."

"We'll forgive you that," Murdock said. At the girl's odd look, he held his arms out to encompass the team. "Army Rangers, baby."

"I'll forgive _you_ that," Tessa answered, smiling.

"Hey now, there's four of us and one of you."

"And you're out of fireworks."

"Not now," Hannibal stopped the sparring and the two fell silent, still smiling at each other. Murdock couldn't seem to take his eyes off of her, but not for the reasons one might think. He looked much like the blonde had in the club earlier: like he was trying to work out where he recognized her from.

Hannibal looked back to the agents. "If she's going in there, then we don't have many options."

"All right." Teegan smiled victoriously. "So tomorrow..."

"We haven't said we'll do it yet." Hannibal looked at his men, checking for a non-verbal vote. They all nodded. "We're not doing this for free, Special Agent."

"I figured you would go there, Colonel," Teegan replied. "We're prepared to offer you compensation."

"_Compensation?_" Hannibal scoffed. "You called us. You know who we are. You know what we want."

He didn't miss the girl's sudden stare, the flicker of confusion and concern that passed over her face. He checked himself, wondering how much farther to push this while she was still there. He wondered if pushing was even enough. The idea that this young lady was willingly walking into a trap without all the information both sickened and enraged him. It made him want to tell her to open her eyes and ask the questions - but it also reminded him of the A-Team's relationship to General Morrison. _We didn't ask questions because we thought didn't need to. We trusted him to protect us and look what happened._

"Yeah, about that, how _did_ you call us?" Face chimed in, breaking Hannibal's train of thought. "I mean, this whole 'undercover' operation seems poorly thought out, but it wouldn't even be a problem if we at least knew how you found us."

"Agent Haskell," Teegan said, "why don't you go give Tessa her clothes back?"

_Tessa._ To make things worse, the bait now had a name. Agent Haskell gave Teegan a glare that clearly chastised her for revealing the girl's name. Tessa, for her part, instantly held up a hand. "No. I'd rather stay and find out what he means by 'what we want.' If these men are going to be protecting me, I think I want to make sure they're the protecting kind."

"We are the protecting kind," Face insisted with his charismatic smile, but Tessa's eyes had shifted distrustfully to Murdock.

The pilot instantly reacted. "Yeah, what is it about me that you don't like?" he asked, mild hurt coloring his voice. "I mean, I showered and shaved today. I tried to protect you already from those boys back there in the club. You had no issues when we were dancing. Hell, we were joking around not a minute ago. But the moment things get intense, you start looking at me like I'm going to stab you with a knife at any moment."

Tessa gulped as everyone turned to look at her, but she shook her head. "I...it's...nothing. Don't worry about it." She glared at Teegan. "Why didn't you tell me my protection was _four Army Rangers_? Doesn't this sort of seem like something I should have known about beforehand?"

"It's something you know now," Teegan said.

"Yeah, and I'm a hell of a lot more _concerned_ now!"

"Agent Haskell, please," Teegan nodded. "Tessa, think about this. They're four Army Rangers, and their sole purpose is to protect you." She gave Hannibal a hard glare. "We wouldn't have asked their help if we'd had any doubts." Agent Haskell moved behind Tessa and touched her back. "Now please, go with Agent Haskell. He'll get you your clothes and your $500 payment."

Still glaring daggers at Agent Teegan, Tessa reluctantly allowed Agent Haskell to guide her away. The moment she was out of earshot, Hannibal spoke in a forceful voice: "You better start talking, Special Agent."

"The FBI is new to the case." Teegan needed no further urging. "We were only called in by local law enforcement two weeks ago, and two more girls have gone missing since then. What we've managed to uncover so far is that these six girls have been initiated into a trafficking ring whose operations start in Los Angeles. Haskell and I have been assigned to stop the ring from taking the girls out of L.A. But in order to do that, we need to know how the girls are getting into the ring in the first place. The modeling agency is the biggest lead we have had in the two weeks we've been on board, and we're following through on it."

Hannibal blinked. "But...these girls have been missing for weeks, you said. Why aren't you looking outside of L.A. to try and see how they were shipped out?"

"Out of city operations are being handled by other agents. We have some leads, and they are being followed. As I said, we're not assigned to that part of it."

Murdock snorted. "So basically, the girls who are gone are unimportant to you, and you're just trying to stop Tessa from being number seven. And in order to do that, you put her right in the path of the bad guys. Special Agent, _I'm_ the one with the psychotic diagnosis here. What the hell's _your_ excuse?"

"Captain," Hannibal warned, narrowing his eyes. _Where did that come from?_

Teegan's eyes were flashing furiously. Face gave Murdock an odd look, no doubt wondering about his sudden aggressiveness. Murdock, for his part, maintained the stare-down with Teegan. She was the first to look away, visibly trying to regain her composure. "Now we're pretty sure nothing is going to happen at the audition tomorrow, because all of the friends of the kidnapped women we interviewed said they were going to callbacks. But we want you to stick near her regardless."

"Why are you asking us to do this?" Hannibal asked.

Teegan sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Local law enforcement called for our help on this ring, but these guys...whoever they are...are evading us way too easily. None of the interviewees knew who the men were, which means the kidnapped women were approached alone. We have only basic descriptions of a couple of the agents, but there's no way to know if they're actually involved or just bystanders. I need you, because you...don't exist. So to speak. You don't have problems with jurisdiction. And you...flew a tank."

Murdock grinned. "I knew that story was going to be a hit."

"I'm wondering how she heard it in the first place," Hannibal returned. He regarded Teegan with an intense stare. "If you know about the tank, you know about the escape. If you say we don't exist, then you know more about us than we do right now. And you called us on a private, unlisted phone number. For the last time, Special Agent, _how did you find us_?"

Teegan shifted uncomfortably, reacting no doubt to the order in Hannibal's voice. He felt a slight perverse pleasure at knowing he could reach her, he could make her nervous. Where him and his men were concerned, he needed that kind of power.

"You were suspects."

Face's mouth dropped open. "You're kidding, right?"

Teegan shook her head. "No. The kidnappings have all been taking place in Los Angeles, where four men wanted by the military escaped six months ago. As I've told you, most of the kidnappings were clean, only a few leads. So clean that it seemed, to some of the more creatively-minded local law enforcement, that they were engineered by the 'famous' A-Team. Most of the LAPD dismissed you out of hand, saying you were just a story and you were safely behind bars by now. A couple tried to follow through, but of course there was no evidence or any way, really, for them to start proving you were involved."

"As there shouldn't be!" Murdock said hotly.

"You guys are scraping the bottom of the barrel on this one," Face snorted. "You're having some real trouble, aren't you?"

Teegan looked understandably embarrassed. "So...since the whole idea was conjecture, you were dismissed. And you may have stayed hidden except...while I was reading your files, I remembered a story about a haunted house."

Hannibal felt his stomach turn over and a sickness press against his throat. He slowly looked over to Face, who was already giving Murdock a panicked stare. B.A. quickly grew tired of the non-verbals that excluded him and spoke up. "What's some ghost story got to do with us?"

"Do you remember Kevin Trier?" Teegan asked.

"Um..." Face turned pale. "Uh...yeah."

"Not a nice fellow," Murdock quickly spoke up. "Doesn't like dogs. And he likes ghosts even less."

"Ghosts?" Hannibal pressed.

"Kevin Trier was a wealthy banker here in the Los Angeles area who suddenly reneged on his housing contract, claiming it was 'haunted,'" Teegan said. "Since this happened right around the time you escaped from the military, I spoke to Mr. Trier - and he described you two," she pointed to Face and Murdock, "almost down to your clothes. Once I compared the descriptions to the files, I knew it was you. And since he claimed he'd been chased out of his house, I could only assume it was because the four of you were looking for a place to hide."

Face's look at Hannibal was a hundred percent apologetic, but Hannibal was reddening with anger. "Six months, Face," he said, his voice dropping to a furious growl. "We've been here six months, and one foolish act just undid everything!"

Face opened his mouth to try and argue, but B.A. grunted: "Shut up, fool. Ain't doin' you no good right now."

Teegan had an odd look on her face - a combination of pain, smugness, and desperate hope. "If the cat's out of the bag, Colonel, what more do you have to lose? Help the FBI. Maybe something can come out of it that will benefit you."

"Like what?" Murdock parried. "Full pardons? Elimination of sentences? Clean records? What can you guarantee us that justifies our not running?"

Teegan paused, uncertainty flickering across her face. Murdock nodded. "Exactly."

"If the FBI knows where we are, it's only a matter of time before the military finds us," Face agreed. He looked at Teegan and shook his head. "No matter what your motives are, Special Agent, if you were in our position, you'd see this the same way."

"So you're turning your back on those girls?" Teegan asked, her voice stunned, her face unwilling to believe what she was hearing.

"Haven't you already?" Murdock asked. Teegan looked like she had been slapped.

"It's them or us," B.A. agreed, his voice rough. "And they've got people looking after them already."

Teegan looked at Hannibal, her eyes wide with panic. "You...wouldn't."

Hannibal steepled his fingers, pressing them against his lips, the irony of the situation not escaping him. A few hours earlier, B.A. had accused him of being 'too paranoid'. But now, the circumstances had changed. The A-Team was exposed. The chances of this being a military foil were going up with each passing minute, regardless of Teegan's seeming innocence. What made him truly angry, however, was the slow realization that he wasn't willing to turn his back on the deal yet. The slow realization that, intentional or not, he had been manipulated into making the decision he was about to make.

"Special Agent..." He looked up, drawing everyone's eyes. "If you're having as much trouble as you say tracking these men, then that young lady you bribed into becoming bait could be drugged, raped, and sold as a slave within the next week. I'm not saying she will be, but you're certainly not proving yourself capable of protecting her if it comes to that." The words were harsh and his eyes glinted with anger. The three men all looked down at the ground, thinking about what he'd just said. The grimaces that came over their faces told Hannibal that they had caught his wavelength. He continued. "That girl is an innocent, and if I heard her correctly, you're giving her two thousand dollars to enter hell. That doesn't even cover rent in this economy. And I'll tell you something else: my men and I live in hell. We know better than anyone what it's like to be innocent and have the one person who could help us turn on us. So I'm not saying we're doing this to help you stop a trafficking ring. We're doing this so that young lady doesn't know what it's like to be thrown to the wolves without a fair chance of defending herself. You should know better, Special Agent Teegan."

Teegan had the grace to look embarrassed, even chastised. But Hannibal didn't miss the flicker of hope in her eyes. With a deep sigh, he relented: "You will not reveal our position to the military."

Teegan glared at him silently, and Hannibal decided he didn't like that. He took a step towards her, focusing the power of his eyes. "_You will not reveal our position to the military, _Agent Teegan. One hint..._one_...and we leave, regardless of what is happening at the time, and regardless of how much danger that girl is in. We will protect her to the best of our abilities, but you and Haskell are the ones who are ultimately responsible for her safety. She's on your payroll. So I say again, we get one hint that the military is on our trail, and you're on your own."

"Fine," Teegan growled.

"Not good enough," Face said.

"I will not reveal your position to the military," Teegan said furiously. "Deal?"

"No." Hannibal was far from done. "We work to my plan. Your argument hasn't got me too trusting of whatever you come up with. And you pay us fifty thousand each. Half now, half after. Except for Tessa. You give her all of it up front and in addition to the rest of her two thousand dollars."

Teegan's eyes went from hopeful to disgusted anger. "Innocence has a _price_ now, Colonel?"

"We all have to stay alive just like you."

"Tessa will get paid at the same time you do," Teegan retorted. "I'm not completely the bad guy in this situation, Colonel. She accepted knowing there is a risk. You heard her yourself. She's going to do it whether or not you help. She's taking responsibility for her own actions." Her face hardened and she held out a hand. "Deal or no deal?"

There was something else to all of this; Hannibal was sure of it. But he'd made up his mind already. He reached out to take her hand - and stopped when three more hands landed on his arm. He looked up to see his men all looking at him with serious expressions. Understanding, he reached out, and shook Teegan's hand.

Tessa shrugged off her jacket, looking down at the scar on her stomach. In the dull streetlight inching through the dark alley, the scar appeared black instead of the fiery red it had been in the strip club earlier. She flushed out of embarrassment, despite the fact that no one was really around to see, (Haskell was waiting politely around the corner), and pulled her black tank top back on. Yanking her jeans from the ground, she shoved her legs in and buttoned them firmly, the waistband just hiding the scar. She reached up to the hat on her head - and paused. It was her last cover. Even when she had been dancing with the man in the red shirt, he hadn't recognized her. It made her want to laugh, realizing that her hair was such a distinguishing feature. She'd always thought of it as a tangled mess, not a successful camouflage!

She left the hat on. Better to not be recognized if these four men decided they didn't want to help her. She was really hoping they would though - because the conversation from before had honestly frightened her. The tattoo on the man's arm had been that of an Army Ranger. The colonel's voice had held a note of frantic desperation. And the way she had been hustled out of there after trying to get information? She knew there had been more to this than just investigation (it was the _FBI_, for God's sake), but: "This is more than I bargained for," she muttered aloud to herself. "I was supposed to go be bait for two thousand dollars - and I get some Army Ranger Colonel and his three friends as my _backup_? I know there's some danger here but this is utterly ridiculous."

"It's not, actually."

Tessa jumped at Haskell's voice, and a soft chuckle floated around the corner. "Your voice carries in the alley, Miss Kelly."

"That's nice to know, Agent Haskell," Tessa replied, a little irritated. "You know what else would be nice to know? Exactly what's going on."

"May I come around?"

"Yeah."

Haskell stepped into the alley. "Miss Kelly, I regret to inform you that you have not been entirely informed of the circumstances you are in. I will explain."

Well, this was the most she had ever heard him speak. Jess did all the talking usually, and he followed her like a lapdog, but here alone he didn't seem quite so - submissive. There was a glint to his eyes, a lift to his carriage, a more confident air than she had seen previously. He had a soft but very firm voice, cut with an Austen prestige. _Why isn't he in charge? Jess seems so green, so panicked and unsure. But he's got his finger on the pulse of what's happening here. Or so he's about to prove. Maybe._

"We're not concerned about the modeling agency at all, Miss Kelly," Haskell began. "You are participating in an undercover mission in which to capture some very dangerous government fugitives. Specifically, those four men."

Tessa felt an overwhelming surge of panic, and she sucked in a breath as anger and fear battled for dominance over her body. Her head spun from the explosion of chemicals inside her brain, and she swayed a little on her feet. Haskell instantly reached out for her, but she impulsively slapped at his hand. "No. No." A wave of shaking broke out over her body. "I get $500 for coming here and playing the game this far, but I am not about to get any further involved than this."

"Miss Kelly, you will be protected at all times."

"By _them_!" Tessa shot back, her voice high in panic. "Wasn't that the point? They're my bodyguards. Who's going to be my bodyguards from my bodyguards? You and Jess? _Please._ No offense, but I don't think you can take out four men and Jess can't even form a coherent sentence."

"The reason I say you have nothing to worry about is because you are of no threat to them whatsoever, Miss Kelly. You are the person they are supposed to protect. You are the innocent bystander. If anything, they perceive Agent Teegan and I as the threat. They'll protect you from us as much from the fictitious 'bad guys' we've made up. Now, I'm going to give you this." He reached into his pocket and lifted out a little box. Opening it, he revealed a small silver pin in the shape of a lieutenant colonel's oak leaf insignia. Tessa's heart dropped into her stomach, and sudden tears burned at the corner of her eyes. _Dad._ She gulped hard again.

"This pin is a little camera," Haskell said. "If you wear it at all times, you will constantly be transmitting information to Agent Teegan and I. We will immediately be informed if you're in trouble. Now I have to tell you, Miss Kelly, that you will have to be with them for at least a specified amount of time. We have to carry out the fiction that you are in danger from this modeling agency, which means we have to also convince them that the danger has passed. Once they realize that you are no longer in trouble, that is when we will move in to capture them."

"Why not before?"

Haskell sighed. "These men are ex-Army Rangers. They are incredibly intelligent. You will see that as you interact with them. Any whiff of a possible deception, and they'll cut and run. We must convince them that the only one in danger here is you, and we must break down their guard. Once they're convinced you're safe and the job is over, we will capture them."

Tessa bit her lip. "H-How long do I have to be with them?"

"It really depends on how long they will wait to make sure you are out of danger. If after two weeks, they are still on their guard, we can compose a fabrication that takes the pressure off of you."

_Two weeks._ Tessa took in a deep breath. _Anything can happen in two weeks._ "I...I don't know..."

"Ten thousand dollars."

Tessa blinked. Haskell reached into his pocket and withdrew a checkbook. "Five thousand now. You can turn it into the bank tomorrow. Five thousand more after two weeks." He gave her a serious look. "Miss Kelly, do not take me lightly. I fully understand what I am asking you to do. And I would not ask you to do it if I was not a hundred percent sure that we could protect you if things go wrong."

Tessa thought, staring at the checkbook. The adrenaline boiled through her system, and she found herself wanting to do nothing more than curl up in a ball and hide. _Where's the jazz? Where's the excitement? Where's the realization that I'm putting myself in danger and even though I have a lifeline, there's no guarantee - and I still want to do it? It's been nine years. I do what I want because at any moment I could be dead._ She touched her stomach. _I could have been dead._

_This is unlike anything you've done before,_ her logical side argued._ This isn't staying in a hostel in Prague, or walking in New York City alone at night. This is walking up to a crazed gunman and daring him to pull the trigger. This is downright reckless._

_Except at this point, I have no choice. If I pull out now, the men will be suspicious, and I don't want four suspicious fugitives associating me with the people trying to catch them._

Her logical side went quiet, and Tessa fixed Agent Haskell with a glare. Then, she reached her hand out, palm up, for the checkbook and pin. "Tax-free."

Agent Haskell smiled. "Tax-free."

As Tessa took the pin and stuck it to her shirt, she missed the satisfied smirk on Jacob Haskell's face. When she looked back up at him, his unreadable poker face regarded her with definitive curiosity and a slight urgency. "Shall we reenter the conversation?" he asked.

Tessa nodded, allowing him to lead her back. As the men grew in her vision, she took the few seconds she had now to investigate them. Flashing back to the brief conversation she'd had with them, she assigned them roles in her head. The decisive and determined leader. The silent and strong enforcer. The cunning and charismatic smooth-talker. And the mysterious and manic wild card. The last one worried her. He'd had a point about her attitude towards him – she was at the same time attracted to and frightened of him. He had a spontaneous quality that she understood well – but the simple fact was that she couldn't shake the feeling he had a creepy side. After all, he kept staring at her.

"One last thing, Miss Kelly," Haskell said almost in a whisper. Tessa looked at him. "I am your contact for these fugitives. You are primarily my assignment. Agent Teegan is focusing on keeping the story about the agency going. Reporting on these men to her could create a breakdown in communication. Do you understand?"

"Only talk to you. Got it." _I'm working with the FBI and keeping secrets from the FBI. How do these people handle all of this?_

_It's similar to that movie _Inception, her mnemonics kicked in. _Each person has only one job_. Seemed awfully limiting, but if that's the way the game was played...

Haskell cleared his throat as they approached, and the four men and Jess looked up hurriedly, clearly surprised at their entrance. The four men quickly made room for them, and Tessa put on her best smile. "So do I get an escort to the audition?" she asked boldly, trying to build confidence that she felt seeping away every second.

"We'll help you," the leader said. With a glance at his men, he reached his hand out. "Hannibal Smith, Miss Tessa."

Tessa reached out to shake his hand, and was horrified to see her fingers trembling. Hannibal saw it too, hesitating. Tessa cleared her throat and shook her hand, wiggling her fingers. "Too much coffee earlier," she said.

Hannibal nodded and took her hand. His grip was warm and firm, the skin rough and leathery. Even with her stomach churning in anxiety, she couldn't help but notice he felt comforting somehow. _Bad. Very bad._ She pulled her hand away and he gestured to the smooth-talker with the heartbreaking eyes. "Lieutenant Peck."

"Face," Peck corrected, and he gave her a smile that tugged at her heart. At the same time she felt a prick of recognition. Something about his tan skin and rough stubble seemed familiar. She looked him over for a moment, trying to place it, and noticed at the last second that his icy blue eyes were looking her over as well. Trying not to blush, she turned to the next man: the enforcer. She had to tilt her head a little to look up at him. He had a gruff scowl on his dark face, and his eyes smouldered with distrust and dislike. She didn't even try to shake his hand; she merely nodded at him.

"Bosco Baracus," Hannibal introduced. At the words, Bosco cleared his throat and made an attempt to smile. His eyes softened just a bit, and white teeth poked out from behind his black mustache. Tessa's anxiety eased a little, and she looked to the man in the black wifebeater. He offered her a cocky, crooked smile, the side of his lip peeking up and crinkling his laughing eyes. Despite herself, Tessa felt her mouth quirk in return. "And Captain H.M. Murdock," Hannibal finished.

Tessa tilted her head. "H.M.?"

"Murdock's best," the man answered.

Tessa nodded before looking back to Hannibal. "So...er...what now?"

"Now, you go with these men," Haskell said. Hannibal frowned, and Tessa felt a crunch in her stomach. _Already he's nervous. Already he suspects something._ She forced a smile and said:

"'Now I go with these men?' Sounds safe, Agent Haskell. Maybe I can go home tonight? I mean, nothing's going to happen until I get to the agency, right?"

"We don't know that, Tessa," Hannibal broke in. "Under the circumstances, Agent Teegan worked out that it is best if you stay with us."

_I hope I convince him half as well as she did._ Tessa offered a smile. "I'll follow you, then. My car's right there." She pointed.

Face glanced over, and then did a double take on the Mitsubishi Eclipse. "Wait...that's your car?"

Tessa nodded. "Yes. She's a little old, but she..."

"No...I mean...were you on the Pacific Coast Highway yesterday afternoon?"

"I was. I like to drive it – it's very beauti..." The tan skin, stubble, and wide smile all clicked together. Tessa's mouth dropped open. "The Corvette! That was you!" The random car she had flirtatiously waved at just after going around the corner – just after passing the man who turned out to be Mr. Murdock – Face had been the driver? _Am I so sure that meeting these men was by chance?_

Face grinned back. "That was _you_." He smiled. "I didn't recognize you until now; the hat hides your hair. Imagine the odds."

Tessa smiled back flirtatiously, unable to help it. "Imagine indeed."

"Well, let's imagine ourselves back to the house," Hannibal interjected. Tessa had a feeling this was not the first time Face had 'recognized' a girl. "Tessa has a big day tomorrow – and so do we." He paused, looking at Face for a moment, and then seemed to sigh. "Face, ride back with Tessa. Make sure she doesn't get lost."

"Well, we don't want that to happen, do we?" Face grinned and walked over to stand by Tessa. Up close, she could see slight lines in his face, but there was no getting past the chiseled jaw, high cheekbones, and overall grace. Tessa silently admitted to herself that this was one good-looking fellow – and the prospect of 'getting lost' might be harder to avoid than possible.

"Don't get her lost either, Face." Hannibal's knowing voice made Tessa smile. _Smooth-talker, charismatic, and cunning, remember? And he's a fugitive? Wake up._ "Good evening Agent Teegan, Agent Haskell. We'll see you tomorrow."

"Good evening, Colonel. Gentlemen. Miss Kelly," Haskell gave Tessa a tiny smile, which she returned. Jess merely nodded to her, and Tessa resisted the urge to stick out her tongue at the woman's retreating back. She turned and began heading for her car.

"Bossman? Are we sure letting Face go with her is a good idea?"

The words were whispered, they came from Murdock, and there was a level of distrust and doubt in them that made Tessa want to run. _They don't suspect. They don't suspect._ Tessa kept walking, not wanting to turn around and admit she'd heard it.

"They'll be fine, Murdock. They'll probably beat us home."

Her guard up, Tessa swung into the car. Face joined her, clicking his seat belt. "We won't beat them home," he said. "No one drives faster than Bosco."

Tessa craned her neck and snorted when she saw the car the other men were heading towards. "In a Pilot?"

Face winked. "Just watch."

Tessa did. She watched as Bosco headed around front, as Hannibal climbed into the passenger seat, as Murdock turned to look in their direction before getting into the back. Face raised his arm, but Murdock didn't answer the hail. He shook his head and closed the door. For someone who had been criticizing her of changing attitudes at the blink of an eye, Tessa wondered if she shouldn't give him a little of his own medicine. What was his problem?

"Is he always...a little off?" she found herself asking.

"Who, Murdock?" Face nodded. "Yeah. He's no harm to anyone, though. Once you get to know him, you'll see that."

"I don't know if I'll be around long enough."

Face looked at her seriously. "Hey. Don't be worried about tomorrow. Hannibal's got a plan, and I've served with him for over eight years. No one's going to lay a finger on you. You've got my word on that."

His absolute sincerity surprised her, but a loud squeal of tires cut off any response she had planned. She looked up to see the Pilot tearing out of the parking lot far faster than its make and model should have allowed. She jerked the car in gear, stepping on the accelerator in pursuit. "Holy shit!" she gasped as the Eclipse leaped forward.

Face laughed. "Wait until we get on the highway."

The two men sat in the car on the other side of the parking lot, watching as the Pilot and the Eclipse left. One of them looked back to his knife, still lightly reddened with blood, and went back to cleaning it carefully. The other cast a look into the backseat, where a body wrapped in sheets rested silently. If seen at the right angle, the slight twinkle of a lip piercing would reflect the light. Its owner, covered in tattoos and scratches from his earlier fight with a white-haired colonel, had failed in his simple mission: to kidnap a young lady from Tastes. This had set their plans back too much for him to be forgiven. The audition would have to go forward tomorrow as planned, and the callback perhaps would have provided another opportunity...but for the meeting the two men had witnessed.

"Not her, boss," the man polishing the knife said. "The FBI's on to us. We can't take her now. They'll be watching her."

"I'm counting on it," the other man said, his voice cold and snakelike. "They'll watch...and they'll never know that we're achieving our goal right under their noses. They won't have any idea what's going on until it's too late, and by then we'll be long gone." He smiled. "We'll kill her right in front of them, and they won't have any idea who we are."

**I'm so sorry this took so long to rewrite...I hope you all enjoyed it, and are sufficiently entertained, if a bit confused. Don't worry, all the questions will be answered...by the end of the fic, (though if you find yourself too confused to keep reading, let me know and I will try to clarify anything I can without spoiling the story). ;-) Special thanks to Dr Spleenmeister, who graciously helped me get a few things in order here, and now I can only say onward!**


	10. Chapter Nine: At Ease

**Chapter Nine: At Ease**

No one slept that night.

On agreement from everyone, Hannibal had secretly activated the house intercom system – something he hadn't done in almost four months. However, it wasn't the sound of snoring that kept everyone up – it was the simple fact that something was drastically and frighteningly different. For the first time in six months, someone who wasn't a member of the team was in their house. And the effects were palpable.

B.A., for example, lay on his bed in his room, staring at the door, wondering if at any moment a bevy of MPs would come charging into the house, waving their guns and arresting or killing everyone on sight. Face didn't even try to lie down for bed; he took up a position at his window, peeking out into the cool January night. He thought about Tessa, and their brief, playful conversation on the way home, (she hadn't had much time to talk, trying to keep up with B.A.). They hadn't talked about much, mostly the beauty of the city, (to which Face hadn't been able to resist a few flirtatious barbs, which she had returned with accuracy). He didn't like that Hannibal had decided to help her, but he couldn't deny that there was something about her that triggered that protective gene. Maybe it was because he hadn't had to protect anyone in a while.

Hannibal lay on his bed, arms crossed behind his head, staring at the ceiling. He needed something blank to look at, something to lay his whirling thoughts on. He'd been manipulated tonight, just another example of how loose the team had gotten. There was a girl in their midst that none of them trusted, but he couldn't just let walk away. A need to protect the innocent, perhaps. Or maybe because if they had walked away, there was the obvious chance that the military would find them. Plus they would have been right back in the same boat they had been last week. They needed something to _do._

_ Are you afraid?_

The question was there, tormenting him. He hated it, tried to deny it, tried to forget it. But it just kept coming back with every tiny sound he heard and every plan his mind concocted.

_I don't think I'm afraid._

And then images would come back. An oak courtroom. Hands on his shoulders, stripping the insignia from him. Panicked screaming from Murdock. He would never forget those screams. Sometimes he even dreamed about them. Later on, looking Morrison in the eye. The bomber. The rocket hitting the ship and containers weighing tons raining down on B.A.

He knew the adrenaline was part of what made him and his team so great. It combined with his unorthodox...sometimes reckless...thinking to provide an intense thrill of enacting the impossible, free of fear. That had been pounded into them through years of training and war. But after six months in the real world, they'd had enough time to decipher the situation and realize how precarious it was. Six months to get out of shape and out of practice. Six months of always looking over their shoulders and hoping that every police car that came into their line of sight would just keep going.

Hannibal sighed deeply. _Yeah. I'm afraid._

He got up, stretching. His mind was buzzing too much. It was time to take a page out of B.A.'s book of relaxation. He walked to the door, dimly lit by the moon peeking through his curtains, and paused, listening to the intercom. The sounds that ribboned through its speakers made him nod slowly. Murdock was pacing in his room, trying to be quiet but unable to stop murmuring. Hannibal picked out 'Face', 'dangerous', and 'protect' before the voice faded into noise, likely from him walking away from the intercom. He heard shifting, but was unable to tell if it was B.A. or Face changing position. And beneath it all, there was a faint whimpering that could only be coming from Tessa.

Hannibal exited his room and walked softly down the hall, doing his best to pretend he was the only one awake. The living room was full of silver-blue light reflecting off of the TV and lighting the plush couch. The figure on the couch, however, was not sleeping. She was sitting up, pilot's hat askew on her head, clutching the blanket to herself. Hannibal could see her eyes were wide as she stared at him.

"I'm...I'm sorry," she whispered in a shaking voice. "It w-was just a bad dream. Please...go back to sleep."

"It's all right. I wasn't asleep," he replied. "Are you all right?"

She looked at him searchingly. "Yeah."

Hannibal hesitated for a moment, thinking. A memory of something he had told his men just before going home last night sprang up. _If this is a trap, the best thing to do is not spring it. Not yet. See if we can disarm it first._

He gestured. "Come here." He continued to walk into the kitchen. A slight pitter-patter told him she was following. As he passed the intercom, he hesitated. Silence.

In his room, B.A. had sat up when he heard Hannibal and Tessa talking. Now he reached for the gun under his mattress and crept to the door, ready for all hell to break loose. Face slipped to his door as well and sat down, cracking it slightly so he could pick up on ambient sounds through the house as well as what was coming through the intercom. Murdock took one step further. He opened his door and knelt in the hallway, out of sight of the kitchen, but poised for action should any sounds shatter the tension of the house. _First Face_, he thought, _now Hannibal. None of them should be alone with her. It's too dangerous._ He ignored the irony (or hypocrisy) of his statement – after all he had been so adamant to Tessa earlier about her reactions to him. But that had been in a public place. This was his home, his boys, and his personal space. _If anyone should be alone with her, it should be me. I can trick her into anything. I'm the safest one._

In the kitchen, Hannibal opened a cupboard and pulled out the can of frosting Murdock had used on Face's birthday cake. He wished Murdock hadn't found it...it was his own personal stress reliever. As much as he liked cigars, there was something soothing about a single spoonful of chocolate. It was relaxing. He often had to exercise some self-control to keep from eating the whole jar in one go, but that was easier than one might think. He pulled out two spoons from the drawer, then went to the fridge and got the gallon of milk. Pouring two mugs, he offered Tessa a small smile. "Hot or cold?"

Tessa was looking at him like she'd never quite seen anything like him before. He took a moment to study her. She looked average, maybe a little on the 'cute' side. She had a petite frame that was perhaps a little too thin. She had wide, doe-like eyes, a round face, and strands of messy, light brown hair poking out from under the cap. Looking at her, Hannibal found it more and more difficult to perceive her as a threat. But he couldn't allow himself to let go of the possibility that she was. Not yet.

"Hot," she said quietly. "Warm milk helps you sleep."

Hannibal nodded and slipped the mug into the microwave. "Which you need, if you're going to do well at the audition. And the chocolate will prevent any more bad dreams." He felt like he was reassuring a child, and reminded himself that he may as well have been...she was younger than any of his men, after all, even if not by much.

"You eat chocolate frosting?" Tessa asked, her voice carrying a slight note of laughter, (in the hallway, Murdock clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from chuckling. The frosting _had_ been Bossman's!).

"Chocolate releases endorphins," Hannibal said. "Calms you."

"But sugar makes you hyper."

"It's all relative." He gave her a light smile. "Care to try?"

"I'll try anything once."

Hannibal lifted an eyebrow at the revealing statement, and offered her the can and a spoon. She dug in, asking with her eyes if this was enough. At his nod, she began to put the spoon in her mouth. "A little at a time. Make it last," he corrected. She paused, then took a little off of the end. Hannibal reached over, pulled the mug out of the microwave and handed it to her.

"Thank you," she said, sipping. Hannibal leaned against the counter and took a gulp of cold milk before digging into the can of frosting for his own chocolate fix. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her watching him, and he glanced up at her. She quickly looked away.

"I'm not the dangerous one here," he said quietly. "My men and I are assigned to _protect_ you, Tessa."

"I don't know what's right," she said. "I mean...I just agreed to model for two thousand bucks. And you guys are...Army Rangers. And I'm in your house instead of my own. There's...too much more than I thought happening here. And it's not going to end soon. The audition's just the beginning. If I make it in...there's going to be more to do, isn't there?" Her voice was rising and she clamped her mouth shut.

Hannibal nodded. _She's realizing now._ "That's why we were assigned to you. We're the best." Lying through his teeth. Well. Somewhat. "Even if something goes wrong tomorrow, you won't be in danger long."

"How do you know? I mean...you were talking about 'who you are' and 'what you want.' How do you know I won't be in danger long? I'm in danger now, aren't I? I don't know who you are, but you certainly were talking scary back there."

Murdock began to walk down the hallway, his guard rising with every step. Face creaked the door open a little more. Hannibal gave Tessa a long look. Long enough that she took another bite of chocolate and set down her milk. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, visibly trying to calm herself down. "I'm sorry, Mr. Smith. Just realizing I may have been a bit of an idiot."

Hannibal relaxed. This part was easier. "Call me Hannibal. And you're not an idiot. You're brave. You may not have all the facts, but you're trying to work things out yourself. You're gauging the situation and drawing conclusions that you'll use to act on later." He cut himself off, surprised at how far he'd gone with that speech. _She's not completely innocent, Colonel_, Agent Teegan said in his head.

_But she is unaware. And that isn't right._

"Hannibal? Can you give me the facts?"

Hannibal groaned inside his head. Of course, the killer question. The one she wouldn't ask the FBI. And the one he couldn't answer. Would Morrison have answered if Hannibal had asked?

No. He wouldn't have.

"No. I know as much as you."

"You're lying."

"Maybe. Maybe I'm not." He pointed. "You're drinking my milk and eating my chocolate. Some part of you trusts me and knows I know what I'm talking about."

Tessa quieted, looking at the spoon in her hand and the mug on the counter. Hannibal wondered if he had just said the wrong thing, but she suddenly took another bite of the chocolate. He nodded. "Is it working?"

"Kind of."

Hannibal didn't ask any more of the questions burning in his mind. He watched her instead, trying to read any signs of body language. He'd picked up that she was afraid, but her earlier speech had also revealed she was afraid of him. Which could mean a lot of things he hoped it didn't. Feeling the situation diffuse, Murdock knelt in the hallway again. B.A. laid his gun on the floor. Face didn't move, listening closely.

"Do you want to talk about your dream?" Hannibal asked, feeling he at least needed to pose the question that had gotten them into their current situation.

Tessa glanced at him. "I'd...rather not. I...don't like to remember it."

_It's recurring_, Hannibal picked up silently. He nodded, but pushed ahead. "Sometimes talking about it makes it stop coming back."

"No. Thank you." Tessa gulped the rest of her milk and finished the chocolate on the the spoon. She moved to rinse the dishes in the sink, then hesitated. "I'll wash these in the morning. I don't want to wake anyone up. Thank you, Hannibal."

Hannibal didn't stop her as she walked back out of the kitchen. Placing his own dishes in the sink, he followed her back to the couch. She lay down and looked up at him worriedly. "W-what?"

Hannibal knelt slowly. "We need your trust as much as you need ours, Tessa. A team can't function without trust. And like it or not, you, Agent Teegan, Agent Haskell, and the four of us are a team right now." He reached out a hand and touched her cap. She stiffened, not moving, and he slowly pulled it off, revealing a mess of light brown curls. "You have neither time nor reason to be afraid of us."

She stared at him, visibly unsettled. One deep breath later, she said softly: "Good night, Hannibal."

"Good night, Tessa."

Murdock returned to his room and B.A. and Face to their beds. Hannibal headed back to his room and stretched out on his bed. Tessa looked at the pilot's cap now on the floor. She picked it up, then shoved it underneath her pillow.

A few minutes later, the only sound the intercoms picked up was light snoring.

o0o

Despite the strange night, the morning was a whirlwind of activity. Murdock was the first one awake, and after he'd padded into the living room and seen Tessa asleep without the pilot's hat on, his surprised cheer had pretty much woken the rest of the house. Tessa had sat up blearily, trying to follow Murdock's stream of excited chatter, though it had taken a full twenty seconds to finally realize what he was talking about. Thanks to her hair no longer being hidden by the pilot's hat, he had finally recognized her as the girl singing 'Right Round' on the karaoke stage two days before. The entire concept of him 'following her' slowly drained away, leaving her feeling both immensely relieved and immensely foolish as she followed him into the kitchen. He confessed, (as he buzzed about making breakfast like a roadrunner on steroids), that he _had_ been staring at her a lot the past day only because he'd been trying to remember where he'd seen her before – and he was sorry he'd made her nervous. Between this new revelation, Face's sincerity last night, and Hannibal's early-morning chocolate-and-milk conversation, Tessa found herself uncomfortably at ease with her situation.

Face, Bosco, and Hannibal entered the kitchen then, each saying good morning in their own way, (a wink from Face, a look from Bosco, and a tiny smile from Hannibal that had the side effect of making Tessa feel very comfortable), and they sat down to a full breakfast. Tessa picked at her food but forced it down out of respect for Murdock. Though relieved from one weight, the second one came down hard. Her audition was at ten. _What was going to happen?_

After emptying her plate, she went to drop it in the sink. Turning around, she saw Murdock standing there smiling at her. His apron – which he hadn't taken off yet – caught her eye. It said: "Kiss the Cook." Looking at him, she shrugged. "Well...why not?"

"What?" he asked, but she walked towards him, sprang up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. He looked surprised and despite herself, Tessa began to turn red. She pointed at his apron and said: "It told me to." He looked down at it, and she stuttered: "Thanks for dancing...I mean breakfast," and tore off to her room, trying to figure out what to wear and wondering why the hell she suddenly couldn't speak.

The time went by too quickly, and she was soon giving Bosco directions to the building where her audition was taking place. As she finished talking, she looked at the faces of the four fugitives she was supposed to be spying on. This morning, they didn't seem quite as dangerous...maybe because for this morning at least, they were her protectors.

Bosco spoke first, giving a gruff little nod. "Good luck."

"Break a leg is more appropriate," Murdock said. Bosco gave him a look and he shut up.

Face walked up and patted Tessa on the shoulder before leaning over to give her a peck on the cheek. "Don't worry," he whispered in her ear with a surreptitious wink. She grinned back.

Hannibal gave her another one of his comforting smiles, and Murdock started to move towards her. Tessa felt a little surge of adrenaline and tried not to blush again, remembering the impromptu kiss. Murdock seemed to recognize the same, because he stopped and settled for a crooked grin, singing: "You spin me right round, baby!"

"Right round like a record," Tessa sang back, though her voice shook. She gave them a half-wave, then spun around and jumped in her car, taking off.

o0o

"Too much?" Face asked as the Eclipse vanished.

"Perfect," Hannibal said.

"Why did we do all of again?" Bosco complained. "Coulda just let her go."

"Like Bossman said last night. We have to make her feel at ease with us," Murdock replied. "Plus, it's just polite to wish someone good luck on a venture."

"All part of the plan," Hannibal nodded. "Face, you planted the wire?"

Face nodded. "On her left shoulder, under her hair."

"Let's see if it works."

The four men jumped into the Pilot and B.A. revved the engine. Hannibal removed the radio he'd stashed in the glove compartment earlier that morning and switched it on. Instantly, the roaring sound of wind mixed with music filled the air, and he quickly turned it down. "Assuming this isn't JACK FM, I think we got a good signal." He smiled at the builder. "Nice work, B.A."

B.A. allowed a little smile. He'd been dabbling more and more in mechanics since they'd gone on the run, and despite being a car mechanic he'd started playing around with more technical things. The tiny radio he'd actually planned on planting on Murdock next time the pilot decided to go nuts. He didn't want Face stealing another car and taking a chance at getting caught! "That's the only one I got right now, Hannibal, but I can pull together the parts for a few more over the next coupla days."

"All right," Hannibal agreed. "Come on, let's go."

B.A. pulled the van out of the driveway and they took off.

o0o

**Hope you all thought the image of Murdock acting like a 'roadrunner on steroids' was as funny as I thought! I'm sorry for this chapter being a little slow, but it was necessary to tie up a couple plots that have been floating since chapter...oh, two, I believe. Plus, it sets up the next chapter nicely: because the audition is here. What's going to happen?**

**I hope you all want to find out. Again reviews are MUCH appreciated. Now that the real meat of the story is starting up, I want to make sure everyone's with me and I'm making sense! I confess, this is my first time trying a multilevel crime story, (as if you couldn't tell), so bear with me, and please help me out!**


	11. Chapter Ten: Nothing's Gonna Happen

**Chapter Ten: "Nothing's Gonna Happen Today."**

_This is a LOT bigger than I expected._

Tessa's senses drank in the enormous hall, overwhelmed by the strength of everything around her. The intense chill of the air-conditioning - in the middle of January no less! - raised goosebumps on her arms. Apparently, the chill perked certain parts of the body and made them stand out - but it also rosied up cheeks and forced the models-to-be to wrap their arms around themselves for the pictures, giving the image of 'Come warm me up'. The suffocating cocktail of makeup, hairspray, and product made her wonder if she had ever smelled anything else in the world - not to mention it all but hid the row of occupied chairs in front of the harsh white dressing lights. Aside from the lights, natural sunlight poured into the room and lit up the colors to both sides of the spectrum. On one side of the hall, there were a few girls dressed in Dalmatian black and white (Tessa dearly hoped those coats weren't real fur), and on the other side they were mixing and matching hot pink, neon green, and banana yellow. The sheer primary colors hurt Tessa's eyes, and after some time she closed them, trying to adjust. Half-formed conversations drifted past her ears as she sat, snatches of words registering in her brain and creating little stories of their own. She tried to listen for any kind of distraction or danger, but there just wasn't anything she could pick up. Not in the cacophony going on around her.

_This is too big. There's got to be two or three modeling agencies holding their auditions in this room alone. How is anyone keeping track of what is going on?_

She wasn't in the makeup chair yet, mainly because Face had come in right behind her and very loudly announced that he wanted to get some 'natural shots before the costumers got their hands on the would-bes.' This had earned him some glares from the models but a couple of appreciative smiles from the 'official' agents in the room, and a consequent reshuffling to allow him a little bit of room. Tessa had not expected him to be there and managed to throw him a confused/dirty glare to which he had offered a winning smile and a wink. She could have done without the panic, but knowing he was there told her that the others were nearby - and that calmed her nerves. A little.

Face's appearance shouldn't have really been a surprise. It made sense that someone would be in there with her. She wasn't privy to the plan and nothing had happened that morning to suggest she should do anything different. Which - felt weird.

Then again, the entire group had caught her off-guard that morning. Their goodbyes to her had been oddly encouraging, and she found herself thinking over them as she sat in the chair waiting to get up with the next group. Then, more than the goodbyes, she remembered the conversation from the previous night. Face reassuring her. Hannibal's intense stare. _"My men and I are assigned to protect you."_ Warm milk and chocolate and his hand on her head. Fatherly. Comfortingly.

Tessa realized a lump had formed in her throat and she swallowed hard. _Mind on the mission. Jess has really got them believing I'm in danger. I've got to keep that up. Even though Haskell says I'm not. And that's a load of crap._ It made no sense whatsoever to her that Jess would have approached her and offered her two thousand dollars to model, then have Haskell suddenly reveal the 'actual' plan to her. That, however, raised the question of why Haskell would lie to her and tell her she _wasn't_ in danger._ Maybe he was trying to keep me calm?_

That didn't really make sense either...but regardless there was nothing that could really be done about it now either. After all, she was sitting here in the audition, doing exactly what was asked of her.

Which was - so far - an hour of waiting.

Slowly, she began to let her mind drift. Somehow, it didn't surprise her that the image that rose up in her mind was from the previous night - of an impromptu and completely unexpected dance in the middle of a strip club. She replayed the scene in her head, remembering how her general fear had turned slowly to surprise, begrudging admiration, and then a slow desire to join in. The whole situation had been spontaneous and unexpected and...excit...

Tessa snapped her eyes open.

_Do. Not. Go. There._

"You're supposed to fall asleep in the makeup chair."

Tessa almost jumped out of her seat, looking quickly to her right to see a beautiful woman with straight black hair tickling the tops of her white shoulders lowering her frame into the seat next to Tessa's. As she crossed one pale leg over the other, Tessa noticed the eye-catching contrast between black miniskirt and soft, glimmering white skin. Slowly lifting her eyes to the woman's face, she stared at a pair of full red lips and thickly-lashed brown eyes. For a couple of seconds, she didn't even know what to say. "Er...I wasn't..."

"It's all right," the woman laughed. "Though if you are tired, I do suggest you take a catnap in the makeup chair. Once you wake up, you'll have this musty, sleepy stare that a lot of these photographers really like." She quirked one shapely eyebrow. "Teresa Kelly, right?"

Tessa stared for a few moments before the rest of her brain finally caught up to her. _She's the model who was with the agents that spoke to me. What was her name? Diane? Dory? Domino? D..._"Dominique!" she burst out. "I'm so sorry I didn't recognize you!"

"It's been a few days, darling," the model smiled. "I imagine you've seen plenty of faces in Los Angeles since you spoke to me." She held out a cup of water. "You look like you need this. You're pale."

"I thought this was going to be a private audition," Tessa confessed, taking the water and gratefully wetting her dry throat. In response to her words, Dominque laughed, a bell-like sound that attracted Face's attention. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him start aiming the camera in their direction and had to take a deep breath to keep from chuckling. _Unable to resist the charms of a lady - particularly when they're on display?_

"Oh no," Dominique said, "no this is the way it goes. Everyone at once all the time. Whoever can take it gets hired."

Tessa tilted her head. "Provided they're beautiful enough?"

Dominique regarded her seriously. "It's a superficial world, Miss Kelly. The surface is the most important part of everything we do. So long as you can hold on for the ride, you're in."

Tessa blinked at the odd advice, but steeled her shoulders and looked Dominque in the eye. "I have a strong grip."

Dominque stared at her for a few moments before smiling. "Well, shall we test it out?" She gestured. "I was sent over here to tell you it's your turn in front of the camera."

Tessa's stomach flipped. _Here we go._ "Makeup and hair first?"

"Naturals first. There's the professionals shooting and the second-levels testing at the same time now."

Tessa looked over. "With him?" She pointed at Face.

Dominque glanced. "Oh. No." She smiled. "We always start from the first layer." She touched Tessa's arm. "Unless you're comfortable doing a lingerie audition in front of everyone?"

Tessa's heart stopped and she was sure all color drained from her face. _Oh no. Oh no. Not lingerie._

"How's the grip?" Dominique asked, a slight laugh in her voice. At first Tessa went tense, thinking the woman was laughing at her, but Dominique's eyes gazed sweetly and comfortingly down at her. _She's trying to make me relax._

But she wished she was looking at Hannibal's eyes right now instead.

"Strong," she said. "Where do I go?"

"This way," Dominique stood and marched out across the floor, her hips swinging sinuously and her body turning like water. Face was shooting her openly now, but he stopped as Tessa joined her, and his eyes widened. Tessa gave him one look, a single stare that shouted _pay attention_, and then someone moved in front of her and she was exiting the roar of the hall, heading for the stairs.

o0o

"She's on the move," Face muttered as he watched Tessa follow the taller model out. "With a tall, black-haired model in a miniskirt and legs that should come with a height restriction."

"Mind on the mission, Face," Hannibal's voice carried a slightly stern note to it, and Face rolled his eyes. So his description had been a little colorful but, in truth, the men would certainly remember the woman if she turned out to be someone worth remembering. For his part, Face waved his hand dismissively at the assistants that had been assigned to him upon his rather impromptu crashing of the audition.

"I'm done," he said. "Take five, get a smoke, get me THAT woman's phone number - yes, the disproportionally inclined blonde - and a bottle of aspirin, the cold is starting up my migraine." The assistants scattered in all directions, two of them heading to the blonde woman who tottered on sticks for legs while her ample chest threatened to tilt her over backwards. Face didn't really have an interest in her, but he needed to have an excuse for why he'd been looking in that direction constantly for the past hour that had nothing to do with the plain young lady now exiting the room with B.A.'s wire on her back.

Face made sure the assistants all had their backs to him, then backed out of the hall through the outside exit. He broke into a jog and moved around the corner to the front of the building, seeing the Pilot parked casually across the street. He pretended to lift a hand to wave at a passerby, signalling that he was moving to his secondary position. "Is everyone ready?" he asked conversationally.

"I'm good here," Agent Teegan agreed.

"Ready for anything, Faceman," Murdock cheerily laughed.

"I told you, Tania," Agent Haskell said fiercely, "I have to work through lunch today."

Face reentered the building and went for the main stairs, understanding Haskell's message. The model and Tessa had just passed him, heading into a private room above the west lobby. Face trotted up the stairs and positioned himself at the top, looking down at the chaos streaming beneath him as models flowed from one room to the next and as the normal patrons of the building went from one job to another during their boring, everyday lives. _If they only knew, _he thought,_ what was really going on in here._

He couldn't resist the smile that crept over his face. After six months, there was a certain level of...excitement to all of this. And if the idea he'd had a couple days ago was any indication, this was only the first of many adrenaline rushes he and his team would be going through.

"This is more like it," he murmured softly.

"What?" Hannibal asked.

Face flinched. "Er, nothing boss. Just thinking out loud."

Hannibal didn't answer, but Face heard Murdock's voice, soft and whispering: "Roger, Face." He smiled more at Murdock's quiet agreement.

"Murdock," Hannibal said, "patch Tessa's wire through to Face and I now. I'm getting to the other side of the building."

"Hannibal," Jess said, "Haskell and I are reading her loud and clear. She's just fine. Nervous but fine. Remember, we're just watching - we don't think anything's going to happen today."

"That the same attitude that got those other six girls missing?" Hannibal bit back. "We're in here too, Agent Teegan. Now that we can't see her, I want to be _sure_ we can hear her. Murdock. Patch us through."

"Okay, Bossman."

There was a sharp crack that made Face flinch, and then the earpiece vibrated. "...nothing to be concerned about, Miss Kelly. It can be edited out." It sounded like a woman's voice, probably the model Face had seen earlier.

Tessa's voice was high and strained. "Look, I don't know how well you can edit this. I thought this was for dresses and shirts and pants. I didn't know a lingerie audition was part of this."

_Her scar_, Face remembered. _No way she could do lingerie with that._ "This'll be quick," he muttered.

"Well," spoke up a third voice that had a bass rumble Face could almost feel, "how did you get that? Maybe we can use it as part of your advertising. Show part of it in a shot for dramatic effect."

Tessa's shocked silence was underscored by the first woman speaking up heatedly on her behalf. "That's cruel, even for you."

"She's got the raw materials but she's too sweet-looking for lingerie," the man said. "The scar toughens her up and gives her a story. People with stories will want to wear the lingerie she wears. We want hard, sexy women, not cotton balls. How did you get that scar?"

After several seconds, Tessa said quietly: "Seatbelt."

"A car crash? You must have been going over a hundred for the seatbelt to cut you open like that! Details, miss! Was it a racecar? Who was driving?"

"It wasn't a car."

There were a few seconds of silence before the man said: "Well if it wasn't a car, what the hell was it?"

"The red-eye."

Silence again - and then Murdock said softly: "Jesus Christ."

"The re...you mean a _plane_? Oh my God! A plane crash! Exactly!" the man burst out. "See what I mean? This girl was in a _plane crash_. Are you shooting this? Get that face. That's the look we want, right there. _Perfect_, young lady. You'll get somewhere with this yet."

Face heard footsteps and looked up to see Hannibal coming towards him. He was sure the surprise was all over his face, and the look on Hannibal's confirmed it. "Mind on the mission, Face," he murmured.

Tessa suddenly let out a grunt.

"Miss? Are you all right?"

Face tensed.

"Sick," Tessa breathed out.

"Get the trash can." A patter of running feet and a couple of thumps echoed through the earpiece. "Take deep breaths, Miss. It'll be over soon."

Face waited, hardly surprised that Tessa was sick. But the sounds of vomiting never came. Instead, something far more vile slipped through.

"She's got a wire," the woman said.

"Plan B," the man said.

"Oh no," Face breathed.

A loud crunching sound cracked through the earpieces and all sound from Tessa ceased, but Hannibal was already shouting: "Go! Go! Go!"

Heads turned as Hannibal and Face lit out for the private rooms that were several feet away, around too many corners, and blocked by too many people. As they shoved their way through, they heard Agent Haskell shout: "Freeze! Put her down!"

"Wait for backup!" Hannibal shouted. "Haskell, wait for..."

The gunshot echoed through all of the building, loud enough that Face instinctively ducked. Screams erupted all around and in the lobbies below, people began to head for the exits. Haskell's figured appeared n the corridor ahead, dressed in the janitor's clothes he'd stolen that morning. He was staggering backwards, hands pressed to his side. Face ran to catch him and guide him to the ground. Up ahead, he saw the fire escape door swinging, revealing a staircase. "Teegan," he said frantically as Hannibal tore by him, heading for the door, "Teegan, they're taking Tessa out through the fire escape. Haskell's been shot. Call an ambulance."

"B.A. bring the Pilot to the west side of the building! Stay with Haskell, Face," Hannibal shouted over his shoulder as he burst into the stairwell.

"The hell I w...!" Face began to shout back, but he clamped his lips shut. Hannibal was right; it would do no good to leave Haskell bleeding on the floor just in case more people with guns showed up. Frustrated, he forced himself to listen to what was happening.

"Freeze!" Hannibal shouted, but apparently no one listened. Then, over the thudding of feet on stairs: "B.A., where are you? They're putting her in a black van, I can see it from the stairs!"

"There's too many people, Hannibal! I can't get over there!"

Face closed his eyes. _Nothing's gonna happen today?_ Beneath him, Haskell shifted and groaned. Face resisted the urge to punch him. It took a lot of effort.

"I'm on it, Bossman." Murdock's voice was full of energy and a suppressed tension Face hadn't heard in a long time. _Is he...scared?_

"What you doin', you crazy fool?" B.A. shouted.

"Freeze! Put her down!" Hannibal ordered. More gunshots. Slamming doors and a revving engine. And then Hannibal's shocked yell: "Murdock! What are you doing?"

Screeching tires - and an exhilarated shriek: "_Whoo hoo hoooooo!_"

_Oh. No._

"Hannibal, did he just..."

"Yeah he did. Let's go, B.A." Another slamming door and screeching tires.

"Colonel Smith, what the hell is going on?" Teegan's voice, torn between anger and fear, took over the airwaves.

"Tessa's been kidnapped, Agent Haskell's been shot, and they had too much of a lead on us. B.A. and I are in pursuit of a black van, license plate number 337 TPH. Face is with your man." Hannibal rattled off the information machine-gun style.

"What about Captain Murdock?"

"Uh...he's otherwise occupied."

"Colonel..."

"He's hangin' off the back of the van we chasin'!" B.A. shouted. "Now shut up and let me drive!"

o0o

**Okay guys - I'm so so so so so sorry for the wait - I confess, part of it comes from the fact that the very next part of this sequence has been giving me a LOT of trouble. Part of it also comes from being on antibiotics for the past week - stupid infection. So what I wound up doing is posting this part and saving the huge action sequence for the next chapter - which I am currently working on TODAY. I don't want to make you guys wait two weeks for updates.**

**Anyway, I appreciate reviews as always and I don't know if i told you all this, but the Sharlto Copley fansite is up, so if anyone wants the address let me know!**

**~Silver2018**


	12. Chapter Eleven: Chase

**Chapter Eleven: Chase**

"Murdock," Hannibal said. "Murdock, can you hear me?"

"You should really try this, Colonel!"

"Captain!" Hannibal shouted. "Can. You. Hear. Me?"

A few seconds of silence - well silence from voices: the roar of the wind and various honking drivers poured through the earpieces just fine. Then, Murdock spoke again: "Reading you five by, Colonel." The manic edge was gone from his voice and Hannibal allowed one of his muscles to untense. This was not the plan he'd made, and he didn't have time to be snapping Murdock to reality right now.

B.A. wove the Pilot expertly through the noon traffic. A lane over and too many cars ahead, the black van stepped on the accelerator and blasted a cloud of smoke at them. A lithe figure was pulling itself up on top of the van using the ladder rack - and then Hannibal lost him in the mess of cars.

"Murdock, wait. Can you see inside the van?"

"In a minute, Bossman. I ain't got x-ray vision."

The vans flew through an intersection, B.A. using the space to dodge another couple of cars and inch ever closer to the fleeing van. The heart-stopping howl of a semi horn blasted behind them, and with a shout, B.A. spun back into the other lane, barely missing a tiny Prius but at least avoiding being pancaked. Hannibal swore under his breath. _On top of everything else, we have California drivers to worry about._

"Y'all in one piece?"

"Just your typical California lunch rush. How's the interior, Captain?"

"Tessa's tied up on the floor and there's a man sitting near her with a gun." Murdock's voice grated a little. "The seats are taken out - it's all empty in there except for the two front seats. There's a driver, but no passenger."

"There were three people in the room with Tessa," Hannibal mused. "Only two of them are in the van? Face, are you there?"

Face's voice cracked through the earpiece. "Yeah. What can I do?"

"Is Agent Haskell taken care of?"

"Yeah. Teegan just got here with the ambulance."

"One of the kidnappers might still be in the building."

"Right."

Hannibal returned his attention to the road. "Captain, anything else?"

"I'll let you know once I get inside."

"Negative, Captain. You don't know what's inside for sure."

"Sorry, Bossman."

"Murdock!" Hannibal started to shout, but the car in front of them suddenly swerved into the other lane, giving them a straight shot and a clear view of the kidnappers' van - and Murdock swinging in through the open door.

o0o

Murdock's feet impacted the metallic floor of the van, and his momentum carried him forward onto his knees. His eyes were already darting around the interior of the van, noting the empty passenger seat, the open space around him, the body to his right that could only be Tessa - and the stunned-looking man in front of him who had yet to raise his gun. Grabbing at the opportunity, Murdock got one foot under him and swung a hand back to grab his own gun. But the move cost him. The other man blinked and raised his gun, aiming squarely at him. Murdock froze.

"Put your hands up," the man asked. Murdock didn't know his voice. _He must have been the third man in the room. The model is missing. _In the daylight coming through the open door, he could see that the man was bald, beady-eyed, and round - though he didn't want to mistake muscle for fat. Instead, he glanced in Tessa's direction again as he slowly lifted his hands. She hadn't moved, which told him one of three things: she was unaware of what was happening, she was aware and too smart to move, or she was dead. _Not dead. Don't let her be dead._

"Gentlemen, I'm just the messenger," Murdock said as he balanced on his knees. "Look outside behind me. The real danger's back there."

The man didn't move his gun. His head jerked from side to side, trying to see around Murdock's stiff hands and wide eyes. Murdock shot his own eyes around the van again, mapping out routes and trajectories.

"Your friends are in the SUV?" the man asked.

"And more are on the way." Murdock returned his focus to the man. "Your license plate number, make and model, and current number of passengers - including me - are out on the wire now. Even if you shoot me, everyone still knows who you are."

The man hesitated for a second, but then seemed to regain his confidence. He sat up straighter and fixed Murdock with a triumphant smile. "You broke into my van and attempted to steal a sick woman whom I was merely attempting to transport to a hospital when she collapsed at a modeling audition."

Murdock scoffed. "That's a nice story. What happens when you get to the part about you being the one to poison her?"

"I wasn't the one who poisoned her." The statement was simple, sincere. He was telling the truth. "But to answer your question: It's all just words, my boy. Your word against mine. A wild-eyed hooligan against one of the most well-known modeling talent agents in Los Angeles. It's all about the poker face, young man. We don't care about what's beneath. It's all about what people see on top."

Murdock paused for a moment, trying to memorize the information being thrown at him. _How's a legitimate modeling agent wrapped up in trafficking and no one has any idea?_ And then there was the last statement he'd made. Murdock had heard something like that before..._the model. Tessa. She'd said something about the surface being the most important part of the job._ "I know about the poker face," he stalled, trying to think of a way out of this that didn't involve himself being shot. "I come from a world made up of them. Everything's white and orderly and made of Sheetrock and curtains. For our protection. For our safety. It's the most boring place on Earth to the outside eye. But to those of us...in the loop," the corner of his mouth lifted, "we know that the moment you give yourself up to the orderly, you're dead."

The man tilted his head. "Your words intrigue me, sir. Perhaps I was mistaken about you. Toss me your gun, and let's start this conversation over."

"No," Murdock said smoothly. "Pull this van over."

"Now why would I do that?"

"Because if you don't, you're going to die."

The man stared for a moment - and then laughed. Murdock used the second of distraction to take one step closer to Tessa. He kept his hands up, trying to be as harmless as possible - but his eyes betrayed him. The man stopped laughing as he looked at Murdock's silent, reddening face. "What do you have planned?" he asked, his voice lower.

"If you don't pull over, you'll find out."

The man continued to stare, then finally moved, coming closer to Murdock. The gun barrel grew in his vision, and he allowed a manic grin to settle across his face. "Good. Get in nice and close. You'll want to kill me on the first shot, because you won't get a second one. And neither will your driver."

"What do you have planned?" the man asked a second time.

"This is what most people call an impasse," Murdock said. "I won't tell you unless you pull over, and you won't shoot me because I know."

"I won't shoot you?"

"You won't shoot me."

The man stared at him, and then shrugged. "Suit yourself."

His thumb cocked the hammer and Murdock threw himself down as hard as he could. The crack of the gun was deafening in the enclosed space, but the bullet sailed harmlessly out the window to impact the windshield of the Pilot. Hannibal and B.A. instinctively ducked, swerving the SUV. Horns blared all around them and the driver of the van turned the wheel hard, spinning onto a side street. B.A. whirled in after him and pulled into the adjacent lane, causing oncoming traffic to swerve around him. "Forget this," he muttered, completely ignoring the horns. "We gonna pull this thing over."

In the van, Murdock had managed to get himself between Tessa and the gunman. His own gun was in his hand and aiming squarely at the other man. Another impasse, this time on equal footing.

"I thought you said I wouldn't get a second chance to shoot you," the man chuckled.

"You don't," Murdock replied.

Outside, the Pilot had pulled even with the van. With a nod from Hannibal, B.A. spun the wheel, bringing the SUV into contact. The impact skidded the van to the side, the driver scrambling for control. Inside the van, the man came hurtling towards Murdock, who met him with a solid punch before losing his balance and falling onto a soft, uneven surface. Both men lost the grips on their guns as the driver pulled the van back even, but B.A. wasn't letting up. He slammed the Pilot into the van again, forcing it sideways.

Murdock, aware he'd landed on Tessa, tried to roll to the side. He felt a blow to his head that spun his sense of direction, and he let out a kick. His foot impacted something hard and almost unmoving, but a grunt told him he'd hit the right person. He managed to slide off of Tessa and turned to take another swing.

The second gunshot was as surprising as it was loud. Hannibal jumped, and B.A. said: "What the hell was that?"

In their earpieces, they heard: "It sure looks like I do."

Hannibal's face paled. "Ram it, B.A! Knock it over now!"

In the van, Murdock fell to the side, his head spinning and his body in shock. He hit the floor of the van beside Tessa - and in the seconds before blackness took him he realized that her eyes were open, staring at him with a mixture of wonder and terror.

The third impact finally took the van off-balance. The tires caught on the curb, sliding the van to a horizontal angle. Inertia took over, hurling the vehicle into an almost complete flip before it came to a stop upside down.

B.A. braked, almost turning the Pilot over as well, and Hannibal lit out of the passenger door before the SUV had even stopped moving. "Captain?" he called. "Murdock!"

"I'm almost there, guys. What happened?" Face asked in their ears, his voice laced with fear.

"_Murdock!_" Hannibal shouted again, running to the back of the van. A gunshot sent him backwards ducking for cover, and as B.A sprinted around the front of the van the man who had shot Murdock came leaping out. Hannibal threw himself at him. The impact sent them sprawling and Hannibal threw a punch that had all of his weight behind it. The man's nose gave way under his fist and a howling scream cut through the air. Another gunshot exploded from the van, and B.A. let out a grunt, staggering to the side as a bullet lodged itself in his leg. He recovered, his muscle and sheer force of will putting the pain aside, and turned to hurl himself at the driver, who was clambering out of the window, gun in hand. B.A. hit him just as he pulled free and - well the guy didn't get up after that.

Despite the blood pouring from his nose, the guy under Hannibal heaved his body skyward, pushing Hannibal off of him. He swung down with the butt of his gun, hitting the colonel hard enough that his head bounced off of the concrete. The world hurled around Hannibal. He dimly heard sirens and another car approaching, and began to shake his head in an effort to clear his vision. That only made him nauseous, and he immediately stopped moving. He heard a dull thud, and saw the man who had shot Murdock drop in a heap to the ground. B.A. swam in and out of focus, and then Face and Teegan appeared. His stomach swam and heaved, and he coughed up bitter liquid that spattered the ground around him. Voices and bits of conversations ran around him.

"...got a concussion...hospital..."

"...rdock? Unconscious. Tessa's wakin' up..."

"That guy's dead...got the other one..."

"Get her hands off the wound..."

The nausea burbled in his throat, accompanied by a throbbing headache. Someone was shining a light in his eyes. He threw himself sideways with a grunt and vomited again, choking. Every cough sent new pain through his head, which just reinforced the retching. Finally, he slid into unconsciousness.

o0o

**Sorry this one's a little shorter. Do I have to bribe you all with pretty pictures to get a review again? :P Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this little race, because we are nearing the end of Part One...(I know, you're all relieved right?)...and the plot's only going to thicken from here! Please review and I'll have the next chapter up as soon as possible!**

**A sad day on September 30, as well: the beloved Stephen J. Cannell has passed away. He was a producer and writer of The A-Team series, as well as many other popular titles such as Wiseguy and 21 Jump Street. Prayers to his family and friends, and I encourage everyone to toss a sheet of paper in the air in his honor and memory. You will be missed, Stephen.**


	13. Chapter Twelve: Debriefing

**Chapter Twelve: Debriefing**

Jess Teegan sat in the plastic hospital seat at the edge of the room, her eyes looking dully over the four beds, (three occupied). A droop to her lips and the stringiness of her blonde hair were only two testaments to the previous twenty-four hours. Her slim fingers wrapped around a cup of coffee long gone unpalatable, but she couldn't make herself move the couple feet to the trash can in the hallway. She held herself perfectly still, listening to the soft beeping of the heart monitor, quietly bearing the strain of guilt and the sickening, horrible feeling in her stomach that something was still terribly, terribly wrong.

Everything had happened too quickly - and it was because everything happened so fast that Jess felt so sick. There hadn't been any time to breathe. Like kicking an anthill, the aftermath of the van accident had simply not stopped pouring. A fountain of information had flooded both the FBI office and the LAPD. With Haskell in the hospital and Jess keeping an eye on the A-Team, detectives from the police were continuing the investigation. All around her, the case was breaking wide open, connections being established, motives being discovered, and more questions being answered.

_We caught two members of the kidnapping ring...and everything falls to pieces?_

That wasn't right. The ring was too smart. They'd been evading the police and the FBI for weeks. The few leads they'd gotten were half-arsed, barely usable, and certainly not enough to shrink the search radius beyond the whole of Southern California. Which led to one other conclusion: _The answer was in front of us the whole time - and we never saw it._

In other words, operator error.

That was unacceptable, but it was an option she had to consider. She was a new agent - well new by FBI standards. This was her second large-scale case, and Haskell had actually let her take point for a lot of it. He'd let her recruit Tessa, and as bringing the A-Team into the fold had been her idea, he'd let her run that too. He'd given her as much information as he had and let her work on the case exhaustively. The two of them had been a team on equal terms this time. And somehow, they'd missed the answer. Tessa had almost died. Three members of the A-Team had been injured. And the case was breaking open by the minute.

It was messy. But it was wrong.

She gathered enough strength to lift her eyes and gaze around the room again. In the corner bed, Murdock lay still hooked up to machines, his shirtless torso covered with bandages, electrodes, and the white hospital sheet. He still wasn't awake from the surgery that had removed the bullet from his chest, though the prognosis was good. Despite that, Face sat in a chair beside him, gazing down worriedly. Across from them, Hannibal lay flat on his back, nearly an effigy in his quiet stillness. His hairy arms crossed over his chest, the long fingers intertwined. Jess could see his ice-blue eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. Even from where she sat, she could feel the intensity and tension of his mere presence.

On the other side of the room, B.A. sat up in bed, staring out the window. He had the sheet carelessly tossed over his body, his right leg exposed and covered in bandages. He'd have a limp for a few days, but other than that he would recover fully.

Next to B.A., the empty bed was an awkward hole to fill. Jess had been staring at it for the past fifteen minutes, feeling like she should be there somehow. This bed was Tessa's, and the young lady was actually in the next room over, being debriefed by a recovering Agent Haskell. She'd been ordered to bed rest for the past twenty-four hours while her system flushed itself of the sedative she'd been slipped. Upon reviewing the audio playback, the only hint they had was of a cup of water the model named Dominique had given her. There had been some water coolers at the audition for the waiting men and women, but as no one else had dropped unconscious the consensus was that Dominique had slipped the sedative in.

Just another ant from the anthill.

The door opened then, an empty sound in the back of Jess's mind. She glanced up to see Tessa reentering the room. Her face was oddly pale, and Jess noticed the oak leaf pin she'd been wearing when she left was no longer on. The room reacted to her presence - B.A. and Face looking up and Hannibal's eyes flicking to the side. Tessa looked down at Jess, who stared back up at her with apologetic eyes. To her surprise, Tessa put a hand on her shoulder and smiled very slightly before moving further into the room. She went to Hannibal first and lightly squeezed his hand. She went to B.A. and inspected his leg before looking him in the eyes and whispering: "Thank you." B.A. nodded gruffly and Tessa went to Face and Murdock. Face tried to give her a winning smile, but he was clearly tired. Tessa hugged him and then looked at Murdock. An odd look came over her face, and she inspected him and the bed he was on. After a moment, she carefully set herself on the edge of the bed and took his hand, holding it. She didn't move after that.

Jess felt sicker. That wasn't something she had counted on. Something she hadn't considered. She'd seen the way Tessa had taken to the men and vice versa when they'd met. One night with them, and then they'd saved her life - no doubt she felt she owed them something now. And it was pretty clear from their reaction to her that their attitudes had changed as well - slightly, perhaps, but they had. _That's not good._

A shift brought her eyes up. Hannibal had turned his head, his piercing eyes landing on her. She gritted her teeth and stood. "We..." Her voice caught in her throat and she coughed. In an effort to gather her thoughts, she turned and opened the door, tossing the coffee cup at the trash can in the hallway. By the time she turned back around, four of the five occupants had their eyes on her. She shut the door and walked towards them. "We have more information now than we could have possibly dreamed of." She wiped her hands on her jacket. "We have one of the kidnappers in another room. He's guarded inside and out, and we'll speak to him once he wakes up. Unfortunately, the driver was dead at the scene..."

"Unfortunately?" B.A. burst out. "He shot me!"

"He could have provided us with more information," Jess countered, feeling lost for words and grasping at straws. "We would have preferred you didn't kill him, but what's done is done."

"Nothing was supposed to happen," Face grated out. He pointed at Murdock. "_Nothing was supposed to happen._"

Jess closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath. _Haskell's not here. You have to handle this._ "We were misinformed," she said, surprised to find a note of anger in her voice. _Good. Use it._ "They've been one step ahead of us the whole way. We knew that going in, and we told you that going in. We were assuming they would follow the same M.O. we've been seeing since the beginning. They threw us a curve ball." She opened her eyes, the anger now flowing freely and buoying her strength. "The important thing is is that no one is dead, and the case is cracking wide open as we speak."

"One of them is still out there," Face countered. "The model. The one who sedated Tessa."

"Dominique," Tessa murmured.

"We know her name," Jess said. "She won't be out there for long. But that does bring me to the next part of this. The case may be cracking open, but it's not over."

"We didn't think so," Hannibal said softly, his voice heavy. "We've made them mad. Now whoever's left will either be on the run or looking to eliminate the threat." Jess nodded. "We're not sure they'll try for Tessa again because they'll suspect she's being protected..."

"No..." Face began, but Jess rolled over him.

"..._but_ we're not taking any chances this time." She looked at Tessa. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to work more than just the audition."

Tessa looked at Murdock for a moment before turning her gaze to Jess. Her green eyes were hard. "I can't ask these men to risk their lives for me any more than they already have, Jess. If the ring is after me, the best thing I can do is get out of the state. Use the money from this job to get my car repainted, get a new license plate, and just...run." She gestured. "Four Army ex-Rangers can do their jobs when they're not looking after the damsel in distress, and you and Haskell clearly don't have enough information to be ready for anything."

"No," Jess said firmly.

"Yes," Tessa returned. She rose off of the bed, still clutching Murdock's hand. She pointed at him. "Murdock was shot trying to protect me." She pointed at Hannibal. "Hannibal was shot trying to get to his friend." She pointed at the wall behind Jess. "Haskell was shot trying to stop the people kidnapping me. Look, I knew there was danger involved here. I even knew it was serious. But...I ain't worth dying' for!" She laughed slightly. "I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. Seriously, it's not worth it. I'm not going to be responsible for anyone dying! I'm getting out of here before one of you does."

"Selfish."

Everyone in the room jumped as the word whispered from Murdock's lips. Tessa nearly leaped off of the bed, dropping his hand as though it had burned her. On the bed, Murdock's green eyes slowly opened, squinting against the harsh overhead light. They tracked for a moment, landing on Face, who was quickly reaching for the water cup on the stand beside Murdock's head. He held the cup down to Murdock's cracked mouth, and the pilot sipped for a moment before taking in a deep breath to speak again.

"You signed on for this," he said, his voice a little stronger, though he had to take a breath during every sentence. "You knew it was dangerous. You knew that we'd be...in danger as much as you. Running away right now is selfish...because now we ARE in danger because of you." His eyes flicked back and forth, clearly looking for Tessa, who was trying to sneak back to her bed. Frustrated, Face grabbed her arm and pulled her into Murdock's line of vision. Murdock's eyes landed on her. "You're...staying...right here." He weakly lifted a hand and locked his fingers around her wrist. "Where we...can watch you."

Tessa's eyes were furious, but she did not offer resistance.

"Now we have that settled," Hannibal said, "Agent Teegan...can you bring us up to speed on exactly what we know?"

"Later," Jess said. "Once all of you are a little more coherent."

"I'm coherent," Murdock muttered, "I just can't move."

"Just give it a little more time," Jess said. "I'll give you all a debriefing when I have more information to give you."

"There is something I want to know," Face said. "We've been in here for almost a full day...how safe is this place?"

"We been here _how long_?" B.A. asked.

Hannibal's head snapped up, and then fell back with a moan. Face very quickly moved from Murdock's side to Hannibal's as the other man abruptly turned his head and vomited. The sounds caught Murdock's attention and he immediately began to try and move, letting out a hiss of pain as he did so. Tessa held him down. "Bossman?" he asked, unwillingly relenting. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"He got a concussion," Face said. "He's just getting over it, Murdock. Don't worry. Hannibal, you know you're not supposed to move quickly."

"Get that thing away from me," Hannibal groaned and Face headed to the bathroom with the tray of vomit. "Agent Teegan," he continued, "are you _trying_ to expose us?"

"You're in a perfectly safe location," Jess replied. She moved to where Hannibal could see her and looked him in the eyes. "You have my word on that, Colonel Smith. Face moved you to the hospital before the police arrived. You're here under false names and your cases are only handled by a handful of doctors, all of whom are currently confined to this wing. I've made this as secure a location as possible, and we will be moving you to a more private clinic upon Captain Murdock's recovery."

"We ain't ever getting out of here," B.A. cracked, turning his face back to the window.

"I thought we were friends, Bosco," Murdock sighed.

"We ain't gonna be if you keep doin' crazy stuff. Can't be friends with a dead man."

Face reentered the room. "Yeah, Murdock...what were you thinking?"

Murdock stared at the ceiling. "I..." His eyes moved to Tessa, who was giving him a confused look. "I just...wanted..." He paused and swallowed, looking back at the ceiling. "Can't be a bodyguard if you're not around a body to guard."

"That has an interesting logic," Hannibal acknowledged quietly. "Agent Teegan...what private clinic?"

"There's a holding area with medical equipment at FBI headquarters..."

"No!" B.A. burst out, spinning from the window. Face jumped to his feet and Hannibal closed his eyes and balled his fists before forcing himself to look at Jess. Tessa remained quiet, her eyes on Murdock, who had turned his head to look at Jess as well. She noticed his hand was still in Tessa's.

"No," Face agreed. "That wasn't part of the deal."

"Plans change," Jess said, a small tremble in her voice. "A bad guy makes a move earlier than anyone expected. A mentally unstable hero jumps into a van to save a girl. A group of men sustain greater injuries than anticipated. You change to fit the details given to you."

"Not this detail," B.A. said.

"I'm with Bosco," Murdock moaned before suddenly turning his head to look up again, his face squinched in pain. One of his hands fluttered to his chest and Tessa quickly reached out to grab it and lay it back down.

"Stop moving, Murdock," she said softly. "It hurts less if you don't move at all." She looked up. "There has to be someplace else, Jess. These men aren't going to trust anything if they're not completely comfortable in their surroundings."

"There is nowhere else," Jess said. "Colonel Smith and Mr. Baracus might be able to get up in a few hours, but Captain Murdock can't move until tomorrow at the very earliest. If we get them to headquarters in a couple of hours, we can give them the time they need to heal in a location where no accidental public sight can occur."

"No," Hannibal said.

"Colonel..."

"No!" Hannibal shouted, then closed his eyes. Face held out the tray again, but Hannibal smacked it away from him and lay perfectly still.

Face looked up at Jess. "We'll go home tomorrow," he said. "That's the earliest we can move Murdock. You've got our phone number, you can keep in contact with us. Tessa stays with us until we're sure she's safe. Then you pay up, and we're done. We busted your ring open for you, Special Agent. The least you can do is hold up your end."

Jess Teegan knew that was the best she was going to get.

o0o

**I actually have no new news to report this time around. Sorry guys. :D Thank you for reading and reviewing, and I can tell you this - we're coming to the end of part one! I'd say maybe one or two more chapters unless I get this crazy idea...**

**By the way, I know I'm likely way behind on this, but has anyone ever heard of a band called The Parlotones? Go find them on YouTube. Their videos can be a bit strange, but they have an awesome sound and some beautiful lyrics. Totally worth those five minutes of your time.**

**~Silver2018**


	14. Chapter Thirteen: Confrontation

**Chapter Thirteen**

**Confrontation**

**What can I say, guys, I'm so sorry. I was so sure I was ready to finish this, and then I go on a like two-month hiatus. I want to assure and promise all of my readers that I have not given up on this story. I just have hit a wall I'm not sure how to climb yet. I know how I want this part to end, I'm just not sure how to get there without seeming cheesy, corny, or lame. I beg beg beg all of you to keep reading and reviewing, because without reviews I don't know to go on. And I promise not to take so long, I promise promise promise. Also, if anyone has any ideas – anything they want to see, anything they're expecting to happen next, PLEASE PM me, you may be responsible for breaking through my writers' block! Thank you so much for sticking with me.**

**~Silver2018**

**o0o**

In his hospital room, Agent Jacob Haskell looked down at the oak leaf pin Tessa Kelly had left on his bedside table. Wincing in pain, he reached over and picked it up, looking at it intently, knowing that his face was being recorded the whole time. She'd worn it, just like he'd asked, for almost a full twelve hours before turning on him. She'd told him that everything he needed to know about the A-Team was already recorded, and then she'd told him that she couldn't betray the men who had saved her life - fugitives or not.

_That is unacceptable._

Jacob's face contorted in rage and he slammed the little pin down on the table. It crunched under the pressure, and someplace in the FBI LA Headquarters a screen went blank and turned to static. Jacob didn't think about that though - what he thought about then was a crippling fear that made him nauseated almost to the point of vomiting. He closed his eyes and pressed his hand to his mouth, trying to swallow down the panic. _You can handle this,_ he thought supportively. _ You have handled it brilliantly so far. Jessica has no idea what you are doing. And you still have the upper hand. Miss Kelly refusing to cooperate no longer has the effect it did._

_You'll just take her with them. It'll work out. Just give it more time. _

_ Let their guards drop. They won't see you coming._

**o0o**

"Tessa? Tessa, wake up."

The fragments of her dream slowly faded away into nothing, replaced by an overwhelming sense of guilt. Tessa's eyes opened to see Hannibal's kind face leaning over her, his eyes looking straight down into hers. For a moment, she was sure he knew the reason for the panicked guilt that flickered across her face, certain for a moment that the afterimage of someone else's lips on hers was painfully clear. But as he gave her a very slight smile and patted her shoulder, she began to relax. It had been a dream. Just that.

"Come on, we're leaving," he said. "Get up."

Tessa blinked, sitting up in the hospital bed. Around her, the room was dimly lit by the moonlight peeking in through the blinds and the various lights of medical equipment, casting silver-blue shadows on everyone. She could make out Face by Murdock's bed, and realized with surprise that he was pulling out Murdock's I.V. and detaching the leads attached to his body. "Wait,' she said in a hurried whisper. "We can't leave! The moment you detach those leads they'll know!"

B.A. emerged from behind the machines, oddly lit by their multicolored glow. "These things got a battery backup," he said, "but they ain't wireless." He held up a handful of detached cables and threw them on the floor. "Can't set off any alarms now." "But..." Tessa looked at the ailing Murdock as he pushed himself to a sitting position. "Can...he shouldn't be moved until morning at least!"

"I miss the days when doctors said 'take two and call me in the morning," Face sighed. "Tessa, if we do as the doctors say, the FBI will follow us back to the house. And so far, our address is the only thing they don't know about us."

Tessa felt another wave of guilt for a whole other reason. _They know._ She swallowed down the sick feeling rising in her throat and slowly got out of bed. "Can Murdock even walk?"

"I'm rather offended that you would think I can't," Murdock replied. Tessa saw him toss a half-cocked grin at her in the darkness, and felt her stomach twist in a funny, guilty, nervous kind of way. _Lay off._

"Come on guys, we only have a few minutes before the guard comes back," Hannibal whispered. "Tessa, you take point. Face, you take rear guard. B.A., keep a hold on Murdock."

"I'm_ fine,_ Bossman," Murdock said, but his voice was a little strained. He lurched to his feet, breathing heavily. Face quickly put his coat on him, and pulled his red cap over his eyes. Murdock reached up to adjust it, giving Face a look. "You don't know how to wear a cap," he admonished, "so I'll forgive what you just did there."

"Save it for the ride home," Face shot back.

"Where's Jess?" Tessa was still catching up to what was happening, barely holding on with her fingertips to the jazz beginning to sweep through her system.

"Asleep," Hannibal gestured to his bed, and Tessa made out the form. "Face got her some warm milk."

"He drugged her."

"Let's not get technical," Hannibal grinned and gestured to the door. "Miss Kelly?"

Tessa gulped, and put her hand on the doorknob. Twisting it, she pulled the door open slowly.

"No," Hannibal whispered. "Just walk out. Like you're going to get a drink of water."

Tessa opened the door and strolled out into the hallway. A quick glance left and right revealed a number of things: the emptiness of the corridor, the hint of a guard around the corner to the right, and the blocked double doors leading to the main hospital. They were blacked out, so no one could see in. _Jess was telling the truth, they really did seal this place off._ She slipped her hands behind her back and pointed to the right, then did a thumbs down, hoping the men understood the signage. She quickly turned left and began heading down the hallway, trying to be as silent as possible.

A dull thud made her spin around, and she saw Hannibal dragging the guard back into the room. Clapping a hand over her mouth, she held her breath until she was able to hiss: "And what was that for?"

"Just keep walking that way," Hannibal hissed back.

Tessa did, nearing the end of the corridor. She hesitated only slightly at the door at the end, looking at it nervously. Haskell's room. She hoped he was asleep. She hoped he hadn't been serious in the last thing he'd said to her, the thing that had left her pale and shaking as she re-entered the room earlier that day. She hoped a lot of things about that man, and the last thing she hoped was that Jess figured out he'd used her to spy on the A-Team. Because she was pretty sure Jess didn't know that. And that couldn't lead to anything good.

Footsteps behind her brought her around, and her mouth opened in a surprised smile. Hannibal, dressed neatly in the guard's uniform, had taken up position on Murdock's other side, supporting him but holding him a little roughly. Murdock, supported between Hannibal and B.A. almost didn't need to walk - even though he was. His face was white with pain and Tessa could hear his labored breathing. He seemed to be on the verge of a seizure, shuddering and twitching away from B.A. and Hannibal at the same time - almost as though he couldn't stand being helped as much as he couldn't stand to walk. _Oh this shouldn't be happening. He can't travel yet._

But Hannibal was waving her forward. Tessa pointed at Haskell's door and gave another thumbs-down before ducking under the window and slipping to the corner. She took a deep breath and walked around the corner.

"Hello, miss. What are you doing out?"

Tessa froze, her heart stopping.

Damien Southsbury smiled at her. Behind him, the limp body of a guard sprawled in the hallway, covered in blood. Tessa's eyes lingered on it, her body lightening up with panic as she saw that Southsbury had the same plan Hannibal had - he was wearing the guard's uniform. She valiantly fought the urge to run back around the corner - doing so would lead Southsbury after her and expose the men. _Say something. Say something._

"Hospitals are too quiet at night," she replied. "Creeps me out."

"I'm sure," Southsbury began to tuck in his shirt, letting the jacket sweep open enough to show the pistol tucked into his belt. "Oh, I'll appreciate if you keep this our little secret." He gestured to the dead guard, then hesitated and looked back at Tessa. "No, actually, you can tell anyone you like. Once you remember how to speak again." He grinned and began to come towards her.

"Hannibal, help!" Tessa gasped and threw herself at Southsbury before shoving her foot into the ground and launching herself sideways. The feint worked - Southsbury lunged for her, missed, and ran right into Hannibal's fist. Hannibal didn't give the man a second chance, knocking him on the head two more times so he fell to the ground in an unconscious lump. Tessa flattened herself against the wall, breathing heavily, as Hannibal leaned over the man.

"You're lucky," he growled softly, "that the FBI needs you alive."

"He killed the guard," Tessa breathed. "We can't...he's out, we can't leave him here..."

"We have to," Hannibal replied. "Now more than ever, _we have to go_. Do you understand this?"

The sound of a door opening made all of them spin around.

Agent Jacob Haskell stepped out of his room, looking a little ridiculous in his hospital gown but no less threatening as he wielded the gun. At first, he aimed it at Hannibal, then slowly lowered it, stepping in front of Face and taking in the group with Murdock in the middle. "And just what," he asked, "are all of you doing?"

"We're going for a walk," Murdock quipped, having to gasp for breath every sentence. "Physical therapy's better in a group. Psychological fact."

Haskell looked at Tessa, his face contorting. "You're not helping them_ escape_, are you Miss Kelly?"

"Have you not seen the dead body?" Tessa shot back, bewildered at Haskell's ignorance. "Did you not hear Southsbury threatening me? You've got bigger problems than the four of us!"

Haskell looked down at the crumpled forms, then back down the hallway. "You're right," he said, oddly calm. "I guess I do. Guard!"

"_Go!_" Hannibal said.

"Sorry," Face said, and hit Haskell firmly on the back of the head. The man dropped instantly. At the same time, B.A. bodily lifted Murdock up, a move that caused the slender man to shout: "Bosco, what are you doing? Put me down! Put me _down_!"

"Shut up, fool!" B.A. shot back. "You can't run!"

"Yes I can! Yes I can!'

Tessa and Hannibal were already running for the fire escape, slamming into the door with enough combined force to hurl it open hard enough to bounce off the wall. B.A. aimed low and took the rebound on his shoulder, grunting in pain. His weak leg shivered but he kept going. The five pelted down the stairs, not even caring about noise at this point, and the dim pounding above told them they weren't alone. "Halt! Stop!"

The five exploded out of the side of the hospital and Face doubled his speed, coming up. "Follow me!" he shouted, heading for the parking lot where he'd parked the Pilot.

"Bosco, you're not getting any more coconut curry tapenade unless you put me down _right now_!" Murdock shouted, his voice cracking.

B.A.'s response was a yelp of pain as his foot came down on a rock, throwing him off-balance. His knee buckled and he fell to the ground, twisting to keep from landing on Murdock. The impact elicited a howl from Murdock that spun Tessa right back around.

"Tessa, keep going!" Hannibal shouted as he began to double back, but Tessa was already running to the fallen pair. B.A. was clambering to his feet and reaching for Murdock, who looking like he was trying to get back up. Red blossomed across his bandages and he flung his arms up as though trying to rock himself to his feet. The movement elicited a strange croak from his throat, and his eyes rolled up in his head.

"_Murdock!_" Tessa shouted in horror.

"I got him, Tessa, run!" B. Murdock carefully up in his arms - and gunshots cracked out around them.

"What the _hell!_" Tessa gasped, ducking frantically. In the distance, she heard a car start. Behind B.A., she saw black-suited figures spilling out of the hospital behind them. "Why are they shooting at us?"

"They probably think we're kidnappin' you!" B.A. gasped. "Go!"

The Pilot roared through the rows of cars, skidding to a stop. Hannibal threw the doors open. "Move, B.A.!" he shouted. "Come on!"

The gunshots skittered through the air around them, but only close calls and impacts to the Pilot came from the sharp noises. B.A. threw himself and Murdock into the SUV, and Tessa followed. The door wasn't even fully closed before Face stomped on the gas and tore out to the main road.


	15. Chapter Fourteen: Impulse

**What can I say, guys - I'm so sorry I've let this sit. But if it's any consolation - I'm up and writing! I'm posting up TWO chapters tonight for your reading pleasure just to let you know that this story hasn't left me! In fact, my earlier promise of it ending soon is coming true. There's three chapters left in Part One, and two of them are going up tonight! **

**Read, enjoy, and REVIEW! PLEASE!**

**Chapter Fourteen: Impulse**

After the insanity of the escape, the next two days were positively stable, if crushingly suffocating. A hesitant agreement to not leave the house unless absolutely necessary trapped them all. The men called in to their respective jobs, citing different reasons for being away and accepting whatever punishment came their way for taking such extended leave on so little notice. Before the first day was over, B.A. had deliberately broken the garbage disposal in the sink so he could have something to fix. Face had taken to rearranging his closet, strewing his clothes all over his room so he could get annoyed at the mess and clean it up. Hannibal puffed on his cigars on the outside balcony, waiting for any news from Jess Teegan, and puzzling over the strange actions of Jacob Haskell.

Haskell's odd behaviour had not missed Hannibal's trained eye. The man had not reacted at all to the dead guard or the unconscious Southsbury. He'd given no indication at being alarmed that the man who had kidnapped Tessa and shot Murdock had just killed someone else in an attempt to escape. Given Haskell's desired time alone with Tessa (which had happened on two separate occasions that Hannibal knew of), and the odd smirk he'd given when Tessa had put Agent Teegan in her place the night they'd met, the man was shaping up to look more and more shady. Hannibal was on the verge of believing he'd gotten himself intentionally shot in order to give Tessa's kidnappers time to get away. Which did not bode well for anyone. Hannibal had a feeling Haskell was playing a whole other game that no one knew about. And so he sat on the balcony that first day, puffing away and trying to work out a plan.

Tessa spent most of the first day with Murdock. She didn't do much, simply sat by his bedside and stared, partially out the window, partially at him, trying to work out the conflicting guilt and worry and trying NOT to dwell on those four minutes of dancing a few nights ago. Face checked in every half hour, looking worriedly at the unconscious man and asking her if she needed anything. He'd started hesitating the last few times he walked in, almost like he wanted to say something, but then he'd just walked back out. B.A. came by to sit at Murdock's side and complain about how Billy had been chewing on his shoes, then threaten to kick the dog out of the house. At first, Tessa had been completely dumbfounded, wondering how on earth she'd missed the dog. When she'd asked, B.A. had only said: "Yeah. He's got a dog," but the look in his eyes had suggested otherwise. She hadn't pushed the issue.

Most of the second day had also been quiet, with Hannibal leaving the house to get a report from Teegan. B.A. created a bit of a mess when he went into the driveway and tore out the Pilot's engine, but it kept him occupied. Murdock had awoken and promptly had himself moved to the couch in the living room, determined not to be left out of anything going on in the house. If he knew anything about Tessa's constant vigilance, he said nothing. It was his turn to watch her, though, and Face noticed it. Any chance Murdock got, he was keeping an eye on the oblivious Tessa, even when she was doing normal things such as a reading a book, brushing her hair, or watching television. Face, for his part, had taken to watching both of them while waiting for Hannibal to come home with the news from Teegan, and so there they were in the afternoon of that second day, watching television while B.A. pounded away in the garage. The three of them sat silently watching the television, and Face had a feeling each of them wanted to say something, but no one knew how to start or what to say. For his part, he was bursting to finally reveal his plan. With the silence in the house and the waiting for Tessa to finally be clear to go back to normal life, (something Face had learned over the last two days he wasn't quite liking anymore), there always came the question of 'what next'? And he had an answer to it. But he didn't know if it was appropriate to reveal to the men while Tessa was still there. So he stayed quiet and thought about life after Tessa.

This was new. In the past two days, despite the fact that she had stayed with Murdock and mostly kept herself out of the way, there was no doubt that she was developing a place in the household. She helped cook, clean, and interact. She'd stayed up late the previous night talking to Hannibal, and of course spent the whole day waiting for Murdock to awaken. This evening, in fact, she had managed to talk B.A. into giving her some self-defense lessons, stating grimly "Next time_ I_ need to protect _him_." Despite her now more-subdued manner, she was a bright conversationalist and had no shortage of impulsive energy. In fact, that day at lunch, she'd danced around the kitchen fixing sandwiches, flopped down to eat, then hurried out for a quick swim in the salt water. After Murdock's chastisement of her being 'selfish' she seemed determined to prove she wasn't.

She hadn't, however, spoken about her scar. Even though everyone knew where it was from now, no one had asked and she wasn't volunteering. Face had a suspicion that that was Murdock's curiosity, however. It had to be one of the reasons why he couldn't take his eyes off of her. Face had a feeling there was more to it than that though – and he wasn't sure how to bring the subject up.

A commercial came on and Murdock stretched, casting another look to Tessa, who was scratching an itch on her elbow. Murdock glanced at Face, who gave him a neutral stare back.

"So…"

Tessa's voice drew the mens' attention, and they looked to see her regarding them with an intense, focused stare. "So.." she repeated, "I guess I can't keep quiet any longer. Even though it's probably not important now. If you guys had wanted to kill me you wouldn't have come after me, right." It wasn't a question, but both Face and Murdock blinked at each other in amazement. Tessa cleared her throat. "I guess I'm asking what's _with_ you four? Four Army Rangers living in a house together with pretty menial jobs, hiring themselves out to the FBI on the side? What are you guys, RED or something?"

"Well, we ARE retired."

Face glanced at Murdock, wondering where the hell he was going with this.

Murdock cocked his head and kept talking, his imaginative brain spiraling up a story that skirted the truth but wove away from it at the same time. "Special Forces, so you know we can't really talk about it. We're one of the units that stuck together. Like brothers. We're all unmarried, been together since we started. Not that we're, you know…" he trailed off, briefly losing momentum. "We're just friends but we're each other's family too."

Tessa, to Face's amazement, was nodding. "I understand. You miss the jazz."

Murdock blinked. "The what?"

"The jazz. The adrenaline of battle. Or the feeling you get when you realize you're doing something incredibly dangerous, but you're not afraid. It's like a high."

"Like winning at the craps table at Caesar's Palace?" Face asked. "It's all chance, but when you have the dice all you can think of is 'why not'?"

Tessa nodded. "Well that explains the 'R'.. What I still don't understand is the 'ED' part. You're retired. But…Hannibal…" she paused, taking in a deep breath. "I guess the 'extremely dangerous' would apply to Special Forces, but when we met Hannibal said: 'You know who we are. You know what we want.' So, I guess my question is: who _are_ you and what _do_ you want?"

Face took in a breath to help Murdock out, but the man parried the question smoothly. "I think that should be a secret, unless you want to tell us how you got your scar."

Tessa blinked and shut her mouth, gulping visibly. "Don't you know?"

"Plane crash."

"So you know."

"Not really. You know we're retired and extremely dangerous, but you don't know how or why. We know a plane crash caused your scar but we're not sure exactly how or why. We're on fair ground."

Face lifted his eyebrows. "Murdock...that sounded almost sane."

"I know, I'm surprised too," Murdock winked, offering Tessa a smile.

The garage door thudded open and B.A. huffed in, bringing a wave of oil and sweat with him. Murdock wrinkled his nose and looked up. "Bosco, even Billy's offended by how you smell right now."

"Gotta walk through here to get to the shower," B.A. grumped. "Hannibal back yet?"

"No," Face shrugged. "Maybe Teegan's got a lot to tell him."

"Would that be good or bad?" Murdock asked.

"I don't know."

B.A. continued walking and Face looked at the two. "I'm getting a drink. Either of you want anything?"

"No thanks," Tessa gave him a smile.

"Secret sauce," Murdock said. "With some of the leftover chocolate cake."

Face had pretty strong suspicions Murdock had put some secret sauce IN the chocolate cake, and he had his own revenge planned for that. But for now, he moved into the kitchen with the full intention of taking just a couple more minutes than necessary.

Listening carefully with each movement, Face rigged up the chocolate cake the way he'd planned. In the living room, Tessa and Murdock struck up a short conversation about the goings-on on the TV that ended in laughter, but it was short-lived and the silence that followed prompted Face to peek. They were sitting in the same positions, watching TV, (well Murdock was watching her again, unabashedly).

Maybe he'd been wrong. Face withdrew to the kitchen and picked up the plate, turning back to start to walk back in. Just as he was about to clear the door, however, he heard Tessa say in a low, urgent voice: "Let's hide the remote from Face!"

"Oh he'll hate that," Murdock agreed with a quiet giggle. "Where should we hide it?"

"Let me have it? If you hide it I think he'll guess. No offense."

"None taken. Here."

A long silence followed - long enough that Face began to get nervous. And what he heard next didn't help matters.

"What did you do that for?"

The voice belonged to Tessa, and it was low and breathless. Face knew the tone all too well and his heart picked up speed. Unafraid of being caught, he moved out of the kitchen to see Tessa standing up straight, looking down at Murdock. The remote hung lifelessly in her hand, and her face was deeply flushed. Murdock, for his part, had a glint in his eyes that Face recognized...but almost couldn't believe. Is he - worried?

"I wanted to see what would happen." No question about it. Murdock was worried. Tessa probably wasn't picking up on it, but Face had almost nine years of experience. He also had several more years of experience on the tone between the two of them. Murdock, you didn't...did you?

"Oh. Well. What do you think is going to happen?"

"I don't know. That's why I did it. To find out."

You did.

Tessa continued to stare at him for a few seconds before suddenly looking up, spotting Face. Her lips parted as though she was going to say something, and then she abruptly turned and walked out of the room. Murdock tried to push himself up to go after her, but Face hurried to his side. "Not now, buddy."

"But Face..."

"Not now." Face pushed him back down and looked him in the eye. "We need to talk about this."

"I'd rather not." Murdock's voice had a mixture of hurt and adrenaline in it, but Face wasn't having any of that.

"Well we need to, because what you just did there was big."

"Why?" Murdock's eyes flashed. "She's pretty, I wanted to kiss her, I tried it, and she didn't like it. Nothing big about that."

"Murdock, this isn't the first woman you've been involved with. You know it's bigger than that."

"And you should know that every woman is different, Face."

Face grimaced. He'd asked for that. But: "You don't just kiss a girl whose life you saved. That opens the door for all sorts of things that..."

"Don't tell me what I do and do not do. You're not Bossman."

Face sighed and immediately changed tactics. He didn't want to fight with Murdock, particularly with how the pilot was likely feeling right now. "Look, Murdock, I'm just saying that we're all in a rough position right now..."

"Didn't you talk to El Diablo in Germany?"

"That's a slightly different..."

"No, it's not." Murdock pushed himself up. "You had to protect her, right? Cause you loved her. So you got too close even when Bossman said not to."

Face blinked. "Are you saying you're in love with Tessa?"

"No. I'm saying I like her. Every man's different too, Face."

Unsure of what to say, Face tried to look back at the TV - and realized Tessa had made off with the remote.


	16. Chapter Fifteen: Unheeded Warning

**Chapter Fifteen: Unheeded Warning**

B.A. wasn't sure what to do at this point.

He'd emerged from the shower, toweled off, got himself all dressed again, an started to head back out to the living room. On his way, however, he passed the study and saw Tessa sitting on the floor, staring off into space with a completely blank look on her face. When he'd tried to keep going, thinking she was just keeping to herself, he'd noticed her face was bright red. He didn't think she'd been crying, but he stopped anyway looking in, wondering if it was his place to ask.

After almost a full minute of no movement, B.A. let out a quiet sigh and knocked on the doorframe. Tessa jumped, her head jerking towards him. There was bright adrenaline in her eyes, but no tears. "You okay?" he asked.

She opened her mouth to reply, but all that came out was a croak. B.A. moved into the room and pointed at a space beside her. "You mind?"

She shook her head. He sat down and stared at the wall. He knew how to comfort his Momma when she was upset, but he wasn't sure 'family member' comfort translated to 'strange girl he was protecting', and he didn't want to make her more upset. So he kept quiet and waited for her to speak first.

She didn't. She finally moved after almost five minutes, shifting her weight. Her breathing was even but shaky, as though she was trying to hold something inside. Taking a guess, he spoke: "Look, Tessa…ain't your fault. Crazy fool was messed up before, a bullet wound ain't gonna do much to him. You can't blame yourself for everything. If we hadn't agreed to help you, you'd be dead. It's a risk we all took."

Tessa still didn't say anything, but he heard her breath hitch. He shot a glance around looking for tissues, wishing Face would show up at the door. No tissues. No Face. But when he chanced a look at Tessa, he saw that she was clutching her hands together so hard the knuckles were white. And her face was red with emotion, but still no tears. In fact, she looked…terrified.

"If you're scared, we can stay in here a while." Kind of an obvious thing to say, but maybe hearing it would help. "Don't have to do self-defense tonight."

"No. I need it."

Well there was something. Through all the panic and fear, some part of her was still thinking clear.

"Just…"

B.A. looked at her.

"Just…things are a lot more complicated than this time last week." Her tone was dismissive. She stood up and moved to the wall, where the stereo was. She switched it on.

_"Promise this, if I die before I wake, oh. Promise this, take the time to say your grace. On your knees, you'll pray for me. Promise this, be the last to kiss my lips..."_

"A lot more complicated," Tessa repeated. She moved back and sat across from B.A. now, staring down at the floor.

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

B.A. shook his head. "Naw. You might get Murdock to leave you alone with that answer, but not me."

"It's not important, Bosco," Tessa's voice shook.

_"By a thread we're hanging on and I hope you don't let go. If you ever leave me, know I wanna go with you…"_

"It's important enough that you're hiding."

"I need to leave."

B.A. looked at her, wondering if the line from the song had inspired her. "What do you mean?"

"This is out of control."

"No," B.A shook his head. "Tessa, everything's all right…Hannibal will have a plan, Teegan will give us information, and we'll keep you safe just like we said we would."

"Let's go. Let's practice."

B.A. blinked, trying to keep up, but Tessa was pushing herself back to her feet. She marched to the radio, which was happily warbling: "_Alouette ouette ouette o-Alouette ouette ouette…_" and switched it off, then headed for the door. B.A. spent about three seconds trying to figure out where he'd fallen asleep in the conversation, and then sprang to his feet to follow. They crossed into the living room, where Face and Murdock were watching TV. B.A. noticed the reaction as they crossed - subtle but strong, both men focused on Tessa as though expecting her to say something, but Tessa didn't acknowledge either of them. B.A. gave them both raised eyebrows but Murdock turned away and Face shook his head imperceptibly.

Tessa strode a short ways to the beach before spinning around. "So...what do we learn here?" She made her hands into fists and held them up. "What do I do?"

B.A. looked at her seriously. "Put your fists down."

"What?"

"Put your fists down. Never try to punch. Even a strong girl can't do a lot of damage with a punch if she isn't well trained. You'll learn how to punch later."

"So I kick?"

B.A. took a deep breath and held up his hands. "Tessa, calm down just a minute and focus on what I'm going to say, all right?"

Tessa let out an exasperated breath and looked towards the roaring ocean. Her green eyes shimmered in the late afternoon light and the sea wind frizzed the tips of her hair, blowing it about her face in an ethereal cloud. B.A. knew that look in her eyes - it was one he had seen over and over, and it was spreading all over her body. Whatever had happened with Murdock and Face while he was in the shower had scratched open some pretty intense wounds, and she wanted nothing more than to get all of the frustration out. He decided to try and see if she could focus it into learning before just getting her a punching bag.

"Tessa?"

She looked at him. He walked towards her, lifting his hands so she'd know he wasn't trying to come at her. "Can I..." he made a motion as if to touch her. She nodded stiffly and he placed a hand on her elbow, then pointed to her knees. "When someone attacks you, don't try to punch or kick. Use your elbows and your knees. They're stronger, and help you keep your sense of balance. Okay?"

She nodded. He angled so he could look her in the eye. "You need to answer me."

"I did!"

"Then tell me."

"Okay! Use elbows and knees. What, like jabbing?" She made a half-movement with an elbow that B.A. quickly stopped - but he nodded.

"Jab if they have a grip on you. Otherwise, twist at the waist..." he carefully pushed her torso into a turn, "...and use your whole body to strike. If you can, aim for the throat or the center of the chest. Or, of course, for this area." He pointed down and she nodded grimly.

"So don't use my hands and feet."

"Naw, you can use them. You have nails. Scratch. And if you can stomp on their feet, do it. But don't punch or kick."

"Okay. Can I try something?"

B.A. swallowed. "Yeah. Try to hit me in the stomach." He stepped back, then went at her low, deliberately protecting himself. She jumped away from him and aimed a kick at his side that connected, but forced her into a stagger. She caught her balance and B.A. straightened up and pointed at her. "You need to ignore the instinct that says kick. Train it out."

To his surprise she came at him again, the glint in her eyes stronger. He moved away from her but she abruptly pivoted on her feet and threw herself at him. He wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug meant to immobilize, but her nails raked his chest. He hissed in surprise and rocked on his feet, twisting his head away from her free hand which was trying to scrape now at his face. "_Tessa!_" he boomed.

She stopped, her thin frame shivering, and then her foot came down on his injured one, hard. With a grunt of pain he released her and she jumped away from him.

"Sorry."

He nodded and pivoted his ankle. Nothing too bad. "You're getting the basics, Tessa, but you're not thinking right now. Let's try this later. Stay here."

He turned and headed back towards the house before she could reply. Pounding through the back door, he stormed into the living room. "All right. What did you do to her?"

Face and Murdock both jumped, as did Hannibal - who had apparently come home in the few minutes they'd been outside. The three of them stared at B.A., who stared back with his customary gaze.

"What do you mean, B.A.?" Hannibal asked.

"I mean I'm tryin' to teach that girl self defense out there and she ain't hearin' anything I'm sayin'."

"You haven't been out there any more than ten minutes!" Face said.

"Don't need to be. When I came in earlier, she was laughin' with you two. Now, she's attackin' anything that gets near her. What did you do to her?"

Hannibal looked at Face. "Face..."

"What makes you think it was me?" Face asked incredulously. Hannibal didn't answer and Face shook his head. "I went into the kitchen to get a drink and some cake, and when I came back out, she was walking out of the room looking very upset."

B.A. looked down at Murdock, who was looking up with a defiant stare on his face. "I don't care if you're injured, Murdock," he said, "that girl has done nothing but beat herself up for the last two days out of guilt because she thinks she got you shot. If you're letting her think that..."

"Are you insane?" Murdock burst out, fury coloring his voice. "What possible reason would I have for doing that?"

"You don't have reason!" B.A. retorted.

"All right, everyone calm down!" Hannibal shouted. "We're all under a lot of pressure here and the news from Teegan isn't going to help."

"Aw hell no," B.A. groaned.

"They still can't find Southsbury or Dominique," Hannibal said. "They're the last two pieces to the kingpins. We still don't know who the leaders are, but Southsbury and Dominque are the missing pieces."

"It has to be someone in the modeling business," Murdock said, avoiding B.A. "Southsbury told me he was one of the most well-known modeling talent agents in Los Angeles, and Dominique is a model. Wherever they are, they're together."

"But raiding modeling agencies isn't their M.O, at least according to Teegan," Hannibal countered.

"You really want to take her word for it?" Face asked.

"I do," Hannibal said. "She's clearly naive and new to the job, but the more she finds out, the stronger she gets. I trust her more than Agent Haskell. She's got instincts she hasn't been able to use, and I think he's the reason."

"What's wrong with Agent Haskell?" B.A. asked.

"I don't know," Hannibal said. "I haven't figured that part out yet. But he's got another angle in this that we don't know about, and that's enough to make me nervous." He looked at B.A. "Where's Tessa now?"

"She's out back."

After a moment, Hannibal said: "Where out back?"

B.A. blinked and turned. He didn't see Tessa anywhere through the windows. He strode to the door and threw it open, aware of Face and Hannibal flanking him and Murdock struggling to get up from the couch. He ran back down to the spot where they had been practicing and spun in a circle.

Nothing. No tracks. And no sign of Teresa Kelly.

o0o

**Next chapter is the last of Part One! Hope you're all sufficiently intrigued/relieved/looking forward to Part Two! **

**~Silver2010**


	17. Chapter Sixteen: Caught

**Chapter Sixteen: Caught**

He loved it when a plan came together.

Jacob Haskell held himself steady against the wind of the rotor blades and watched as the helicopters touched down softly, its door opening and disgorging first one, then two, then fifteen MPs. The men flooded the helipad and ran to designated spots to line themselves up in neat rows and wait for orders. The precision and training of the military never ceased to impress or amaze him. It seemed that with a machine this strong, nothing could ever stop it. That bolstered his hope that everything was going to turn out all right.

He straightened his shoulders as a gentleman with a fierce gaze and a woman in a smart-looking uniform clicked out of the helicopter and stepped towards him. His eyes lingered on the woman. She had the under-pressure beauty of a maple leaf dipped in silver - untouchable but breathtaking.

"Special Agent Jacob Haskell?" The man had all the sharpness of an eagle for his good looks, but his voice was smooth and even gentle. Much like the accent Haskell had tried to adapt with Teresa Kelly.

"At your service," he replied, holding out his hand.

The man shook it, short but firm. "Director Joshua McCready, DCIS." Nodding to the woman, he added: "Captain Charissa Sosa. We understand you've found four of our missing fugitives."

Haskell gave a short nod. "My contact has assured me that they're sitting in a mansion in Malibu as we speak." Well, that was the last known news Miss Kelly had given him before she'd taken the pin off of her shirt and turned traitor on him, but he had no reason to believe any different.

"Well, let's go and collect them. Once they're safely in our custody, we will present you with the reward money for catching them."

Haskell tried not to show his excitement at this prospect. Even after he received the money, he still had a long way to go before this whole mess was finally over.

o0o

"Jess?_ Jess!_"

Jess Teegan was pretty sure she was hearing things as she continued to try and unlock her car. She really needed to get the battery changed in the stupid remote - it no longer turned on the car from the other side of the parking garage. Now she had to be almost inside the thing before it sparked into action. Add the failing light and the near-certainty that someone else was in the parking garage with her, and she was creating her own little horror movie set. _Where else but in Los Angeles...?_

"Agent Teegan!"

The voice was a strong whisper, coming from the front of her car. Now that was just unsettling. Slipping her hand down to the gun, Jess slowly clicked by the drivers' side door, heading for the front. "Who's there?" she asked strongly.

"Sssh! Jess, it's me!"

Slowly, two hands rose into the air in front of her car, followed by the dusty and dirty face of Teresa Kelly. Jess pulled her hand away from her gun immediately, her mouth dropping open. "Tessa?" she asked, her voice dropping automatically. "Tessa, what are you doing here? Why aren't you with the men?"

"Where's Agent Haskell?"

Jess shot a look around, though she knew perfectly well where Jacob was. "He left about an hour ago to go home. He said he had a family emergency. Tessa, you should be with Colonel Smith and the others. All the protection in the world will do you no good if you don't take it. Get in the car, I'll take you back. You'll have to tell me the way..."

"Follow Agent Haskell."

Jess paused. "What?"

Tessa dropped her hands. "I'm not with the men because I betrayed them, Jess. Agent Haskell told me that the modeling agency story was just a sham and the real threat was those four men. He gave me a camera and told me to go with them. I showed him the way to their house and now he knows where they are. I think he's going to try and capture them, and it's all my fault and we have to stop him!"

Jess blinked, trying to absorb the information. It was a little unethical that Haskell would have told Tessa the trafficking ring was a fiction and that was something she would have to ask him next time she saw him. But the camera made perfect sense to her. Haskell had wanted to keep an extra eye on Tessa. There wasn't anything wrong with that. Tessa seemed to be seeing herself as causing all of these problems when in reality it was just the nature of the job.

"Tessa, he wanted to keep an eye on you."

"Then why would he lie to me?"

"I don't know."

"Did he tell you he was going to lie to me?"

"No."

"Why?" Tessa came around the car and Jess could see she was covered in dirt and leaves, as though she'd been running and hiding a lot. "Why wouldn't he tell his own partner that he was changing the rules of the mission?"

"I don't know."

"There's a lot you don't know, isn't there, Agent Teegan?"

Jess bristled. "Tessa," she said sharply, "there's a lot you don't know either and a lot you're choosing to ignore. You are in danger right now, even just standing here talking to me. The A-Team are the ones we hired to keep you safe, and if we have to watch them as well as you, then we'll do that. Now get in the car and tell me how to get to their mansion."

Tessa stared at her, her face falling. Softly, steadily, she said: "Jess...no matter how wanted the A-Team is, Agent Haskell still has an agenda he's not telling anyone about, and I helped him with it because I told him where the A-Team was." She pointed at Jess's waist. "Call him. Tell him you wanted to make sure his family is doing okay. And if they are, you have to stop him. Those men saved my life."

Jess was ready to put the girl at gunpoint and force her into the car, but Tessa's change of tone made her stop and think for just one more second. And then she remembered two days ago, when Tessa had re-entered the hospital room after a debriefing with Jacob. Her face had been pinched, white, almost terrified. Jess had dismissed it as stress and panic from the mission. But joined with her conviction about Jacob now, Jess slowly began to realize that Tessa was honestly afraid of him. And...maybe she had a reason to be.

"Get in the car," Jess said, pulling out her phone. Tessa did, slipping into the passenger seat. Jess turned away from the car so Tessa wouldn't read her lips, and dialed Jacob's number.

A woman's voice answered. "H-Hello? Jake?" She was crying, her voice shaking violently. "Jake, is that you?"

"Is this Mrs. Haskell?" Jess asked, troubled. It sounded like she'd accidentally called a funeral. But at the same time a little alarm went off in her head. Why did the woman sound like she didn't know where Jacob was?

"Y-yes...who is this?"

"This is Special Agent Jessica Teegan."

"Special Agent..." the woman broke into sobs for a few moments, then regained control, "you work with Jake, don't you?"

"Yes ma'am, I do."

"Please, Special Agent...have you found her yet?"

Jess blinked. "Found who?"

The woman's voice turned to incredulous. "What do you mean, found who? Harmony! Have you found Harmony?"

Jess turned back to the car to give Tessa a shocked look.

Tessa was gone.

o0o

Everyone began talking at once.

"B.A., did she say anything to you?"

"Where did she go?"

"_Tessa!_"

"Everyone, back inside!"

"Bosco, help me!"

The four men shoved their way back into the living room, B.A. and Face pushing a struggling Murdock onto the couch. Murdock was having none of it, sitting back up and trying to get to his feet. "Bossman, we have to go after her," he said, his voice laced with frustration and panic. B.A. pulled him back down and Face shook his head.

"We will, Murdock," Hannibal said. "But we can't all go at once and all together like this. We need to figure out where she could have gone.'

"There's no time for that!"

"B.A," Hannibal's voice had deepened with his own brand of frustration, but he kept it checked and under control. "What did she say to you?"

"Nothing outside." B.A. thought furiously. "I saw her sitting in the study and I asked her if she was all right. She said things had gotten...complicated. I don't know what she meant by that, but she said things had gotten complicated and...she needed to leave."

"She said that?" Face asked. "And you didn't tell us?"

"She just said it before we headed outside!" B.A. shot back. "There wasn't any time to tell you!"

"And you left her alone out there," Murdock said.

"I was just getting her a punching bag." B.A. bristled. "She was upset and she wasn't listenin'. I was gettin' her something to hit before she attacked me again!"

"But you _left her alone_!"

"Cool it, Murdock!" Hannibal snapped. "B.A. says she was upset before he even spoke to her. Which means it was something to do with you and Face. Were you watching something on television that upset her? What were you talking about? Why did she get upset enough to describe things as being 'complicated' and then decide to run?"

"I have no idea," Murdock said through clenched teeth. "All I did while Face was in the kitchen was ask her if she liked peanuts. She said yes."

Hannibal looked at Face, who stared back at him and shook his head. "Hannibal," he said, "I have no idea what happened. Women have mood swings, and you know how upset Tessa's been about this whole thing. Maybe she had a relapse. She was fine when I went into the kitchen. When I came back out, she was quiet. She said she had to go to the bathroom and left. I asked Murdock what was wrong and he said nothing. We waited for her to come back, and when she did she had B.A. with her. That's as much as I know."

Hannibal continued to stare, and Face knew the story wasn't good enough. The only one who could really bullshit Hannibal Smith was Murdock. He swallowed and tried to hold the gaze.

A knock on the door first broke the tension, then added to it. Murdock tried to get up again, but B.A. held him down. Face and Hannibal headed for the door, and at the last moment Hannibal stepped to the side, hiding with a nod to Face.

Face opened the door.

His mouth dropped.

Charissa Sosa mouthed: "Face...run."

And then the military police came up behind her, all aiming fully loaded and fully cocked guns directly at him.

**o0o**

**o0o**

**o0o**

**Happy Holidays! Five months, 78 pages, and 43,204 words later, Poker Face Part One is finally complete! On to part two! :D **

**Seriously though, I want to extend personal thanks to everyone who has stayed with me through this entire story. HeartMurdock345, InsideYourDreams24, Dr. Spleenmeister, and RandomRiter - I couldn't have done it without you. I know the story isn't officially over, but even completing part one is enormous for me, as I haven't completed a novel-length fanfiction story in over 4 years.**

**I want to give a special shout out to evie doodle. I haven't seen you finish your story and I wish you would - because you are the one who inspired me to write this. I never thought it would get this far, and I have you to thank for it.**

**I do of course continue to ask for reviews, and I hope to see you all at the dawn of part two. Are you can see - it's going to be intense!**

**Much love and thanks,**

**~Silver2018**


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